2. Health equity at the centre
- Date: 2022-10-12
- Concurrent Session: Concurrent Session B
- Time: 1:45- 2:30 pm
- Room:
- Style: Presentation (information provided to audience, with opportunity for audience to ask question)
- Focus: Balance between both (e.g. Presentation of a best-practice guideline that combines research evidence, policy issues and practical steps for implementation)
- Target Audience: Leadership (ED, clinical lead, board chair, board member, etc.)
Learning Objectives:
- Acknowledge the growing demand for eating disorder support in primary care
- Be introduced to practical tools that will enhance team-based care coordination, including EMR tools, medical monitoring, staggered visits and registry development
- Review the new HFHT Eating Disorder (ED) Stepped Care Pathway and ED Toolkit with clinical tools to foster best practices and team -based care including screening and assessment tools, standardized lab requisition for pediatrics or adults, links to tertiary service referrals and patient self-management tools
- Be able to access the new HFHT Eating Disorders Toolkit for Telus to use in their practice
Summary/Abstract:
Covid was the catalyst for change to look closer at the needs of eating disorder patients in the Hamilton Family Health Team (HFHT). With eating disorder (ED) nutrition counseling referrals quadrupling during the pandemic, our RDs were struggling to keep up with the demand. Limited access and longer wait times for tertiary services further compounded the demand on teams to offer supportive care for many months. High demands for mental health services and a lack of clarity around best practices and medical monitoring highlighted a need to provide our teams with a collaborative model of care that was feasible within a busy practice, balanced workload across the team, ensured patients related to mental health and psychiatry and included the tools needed to foster best practices. A HFHT ED Working group including a dietitian, family physician, occupational therapist/mental health counsellor, psychiatrist, and quality improvement (QI) specialist was created in Fall 2021 to: 1) to enhance team capacity and standardize coordinated team-based eating disorder care with EMR tools, medical monitoring, staggered visits and registry development, 2) provide access to self- management resources and group supports for patients and care givers and 3) meet regularly with community partners to facilitate coordination of care between family practice primary care and ED specialty services. Our HFHT ED Toolkit was pilot tested in five offices. Implementation plans are to share the toolkit across our health team and have 75% of our 80 eligible Telus offices using the new HFHT ED Toolkit by 2023
Presenter:
- Michele MacDonald Werstuck, Nutrition Coordinator, RD, MSc, CDE + Co- Chair of HFHT ED Working Group, Hamilton Family Health Team
- Elyse Trudell, OT (Reg). Ont, MHC, ED Coordinator, Co- Chair of HFHT ED Working Group, Hamilton Family Health Team