[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fOnzpurcqns[/youtube]
Last week, the BC Minister of Health hosted a conversational and interactive event on the future of health care in British Columbia, which focused on broad initiative being launched called ThinkHealthBC.
As described at the event, the plan has four parts:
- “Keeping you healthy.” The first goal of ThinkHealthBC is improving community health by focusing on prevention. For example, it is much better for the province (and less costly) to help smokers quit sooner, rather than waiting for them to develop acute or chronic conditions that need to be treated.
- Access to family doctors and better care coordination. According to Health Minister de Jong, by 2015, if you want a family doctor you’re going to be able to get one. Additionally, family physicians will be better connected to hospital care and other community health services.
- Hospital service improvement. Improving hospital workflow, continuing to reduce wait times, exploring patient-focused funding models, and implementing surgical safety checklists are all examples mentioned for how this goal will be met.
- Improving efficiency across the board. Some health services are already being streamlined for multiple modes of delivery, like dialing 8-1-1 or using a new mobile app. In the future, we may see a BC Health Services card with that uses RFID for unique identification, and an increase in use of technology for telemedicine consultations and remote monitoring.
The big picture from the conversations that surrounded the announcement is that BC is focused on “making a system in sync with our needs.” Another key concept discussed was the use of eHealth and innovations in care delivery to make health care more accessible, and more efficient. Finally, the ultimate goal of ThinkHealthBC is for everyone in the health system, patients and providers alike, to get “a greater sense of control.”
In addition to planning to improve health services on a care-oriented level, ThinkHealthBC has a web platform that is designed to allow community members to contribute to discussions on issues that are important to them. This is an innovation in soliciting feedback that has great potential to support the goals of engagement and feedback that are integral ThinkHealthBC’s vision.
It remains to be seen how the ThinkHealthBC initiative will move ahead in concrete ways beyond the discussion forums on the website. Especially given its bold support for eHealth initiatives, we’re looking forward to seeing how the health care community can coalesce around this new platform for innovation and efficiency in order to move the care in our province forward.