health

"I may be blind, but boy do I have vision!" - Mini Jacques

Learn about how your business can increase sales by making its services more accessible; learn about how people with low vision use the Internet to enhance their lives; ask your questions of this amazing, dynamic and expert panel!

Formed in 1996, Digital Expression spent 4 years serving Toronto before relocating to Grey/Bruce. Operated by Phil McDonald, it provides design and consultation in web development and printed media. www.digitalexpression.ca

Libby Thaw, founder of the Checkered Eye Project, small town citizen who has low vision, stay at home mother, and social activist in the field of low vision. www.checkeredeye.com

Mini Jacques is a successful marketing and public relations consultant with over 20+ years working in the coporate world, as well as the tourism and hospitality sector and as a promoter of regional and community events.

Mini will speak to working, hiring and doing business with someone who has with low-vision.

Mini Jacques will also spend a few moments discussing the Ontario Assistive Devices Program.

The Grey Bruce District Stroke Centre is part of the Ontario Stroke System. The vision of the Ontario Stroke System is to improve access to best practice stroke care across the continuum of care. To improve access to best practice stroke care requires that individuals are aware of best practices and have the ability and support to put this knowledge into practice. In the Stroke System best practices are not just for the health professional but also the individual who is at high risk of stroke or has experienced a stroke.

The Internet provides many opportunities to enable knowledge to transfer to practice. For individual, there are numerous information sites and interactive tools to assist with modifying their behaviour to prevent stroke and assist them in establishing a healthy lifestyle. For professionals the internet and e-mail has increased the opportunities to share information and interact with each other to improve practice resulting in better outcomes for the client.

This presentation will highlight a number of endeavours by the District Stroke in collaboration with its partners to effectively use the Internet to improve knowledge translation. Provincial and local initiatives will be presented. Lessons learned will be shared. A discussion with audience will help the participants to suggest effective ways to further use the Internet in local initiatives.

Example of initiatives:

• Heart and Stroke Foundation Blood Pressure Action Plan
• Evidence to Practice Project
• BRAINSAVE
• Rehabilitation Education Program for Stroke (REPS) – On-line Education
• Towards Evidence Informed Practice Project and use of Live Meeting
• Grey Bruce Rural Community Partnership in Resource Exchange for Healthy Living –Information Prescription Project.

Future:

• Stroke Blog
• Virtual Reality
• Telerehabilitation

A recently deployed syndromic surveillance project has forged new communication links between the community hospitals in Grey-Bruce and the Grey Bruce Health Unit (Health Unit). ECADS – which stands for “Early CBRN” (Chemical/Biological/Radiological/Nuclear) Attack Detection by Computerized Medical Record Surveillance – is a new electronic software application designed to identify emerging outbreaks of illness in the community. Each of the 11 rural hospitals in Grey-Bruce are ECADS participants, as is the Owen Sound site of Grey Bruce Health Services (GBHS) which houses the server.

ECADS uses data as reported by patients who visit area hospital Emergency Rooms (ER). Based on an archive of illness profiles, the technology assigns ER patients’ chief complaints into one of eight illness categories or syndromes – respiratory, gastrointestinal, constitutional, rash, hemorrhagic, botulinic, neurological, and “other”.

Data received from all area ERs is analyzed at the GBHS central processing site four times during each 24-hour period. When a predetermined probabilistic threshold of illness is exceeded in any illness category, the system will generate an alert. When this happens, the Health Unit determines the authenticity of the alert by reviewing the particulars.

A recently released ECADS respiratory alert prompted the Health Unit to suspect that Pertussis (whooping cough) may be involved. Local ERs received a Physician’s Advisory
that provided preliminary notice that children with these symptoms may not be isolated random cases, but part of a suspected Pertussis cluster. ER personnel were also requested to obtain specimens for laboratory confirmation of the disease.

The value of ECADS to provide an early warning of community-wide illness was demonstrated recently by a retrospective simulation conducted by Richard Davies. Dr. Davies used patient data from the Walkerton, Ontario outbreak to show that the outbreak could have been identified up to three days earlier than it was. This offers a significant opportunity for hospitals and public health to diminish the impact of an emerging public health threat and to strengthen outbreak identification and control protocols with other partners and the greater medical community.

This project has been in place at GBHS for six months, but its real-time simultaneous ability to provide advanced warning of outbreaks of illness in the community may prove invaluable. This technology has allowed the roles of the community hospital and the Health Unit to provide an enhanced approach to identifying and managing potential threats to public health.

Dr. Hazel R. Lynn is the Medical Officer of Health at the Grey Bruce Health Unit.

There is a growing understanding in Canada and other countries that suggest that the financial circumstances of individuals and groups are equally or more important to health status than medical care and personal health behaviours, such as smoking and eating patterns.

These additional factors such as, income inequality, social inclusion and exclusion, employment and job security, working conditions, contribution of the social economy, early childhood care, education, food security and housing can all contribute to a persons overall health.

The United Way of Bruce Grey in partnership with Community Connections is working to bring the 211 information referral system to Grey Bruce. Having easy access to information on community services is the first step in improving the health of a community, especially those at economic risk.

While the expansion of the 24 hour call centre needs additional partners, the United Way of Bruce Grey has been able to fund the online portion of the 211 system. This is a pilot project and Grey Bruce will be the first region to receive 211 services online without the call centre component. The launch of this online system is anticipated for June 2007. By demonstrating the potential of 211 through the lower cost online version, it is hoped that further partnerships will expand the system to encompass the call centre feature.

Collingwood has both the call centre and online 211 information centre and can be accessed through this link www.211simcoecounty.ca

If accepted as a session Executive Director of the United Way of Bruce Grey, Francesca Dobbyn will walk participants through the 211 website demonstrating that health can be improved through access to information in an online format. The 211 system is aimed at both the consumer of its information and the services that are listed, enabling a staff member of an agency to seek further resources for a client, all in one meeting.