Qualitycast North

A familiar voice returns to the podcast this week. Dr. Eiko Waida, who recently joined us as co-host for the special series on the Romanow Report, takes the guest’s seat today talking about her own quality improvement work in the pediatric diabetes clinic at Vernon Jubilee Hospital. 

We hear how her improvement work, although initially aimed at improving clinic staff morale, turned into a ground-breaking pilot project improving timely, patient-centered care using a texting platform. 

This successful project subsequently introduced a new model of care, improved the patient and provider experience, and offers further appl...

Life can be a cruel sport, often serving both joy and heartbreak in equal measure. But sometimes what matters is how we stand up again after getting knocked down. 

Join us for an emotional episode this week as we interview local Prince George boxing hero and club owner Kenny Lally about his successful amateur boxing career, his descent into depression and addiction and subsequent recovery. 

Listen to Kenny’s amazing story and how it enables him to give back by helping local children manage their own mental health challenges through life lessons from the boxing ring...

Medical schools major on training student physicians on the pathological basis of disease and the evidence-based therapies we prescribe to heal disease. But important and often overlooked contributors to health are the social determinants: poverty, nutrition, housing and related socio-economic factors. 

How health care is delivered on a system basis must consider these socioeconomic factors to ensure quality and effectiveness, particularly in rural communities such as those in Northern BC. That’s the interest of today’s guest, a family and emergency room physician, Dr. Navpreet Sidhu. 

In this fascinating episode she takes us through the im...

Qualitycast North is excited to bring you a special 4-episode series celebrating the 25-year anniversary of The Royal Commission on the Future of Health Care in Canada and the subsequent, ground-breaking, Romanow Report.

About the Royal Commission and Romanow Report
In 2001, the Federal government launched the landmark Romanow Commission, to examine the future of Canada’s publicly funded healthcare system. Led by Roy Romanow, the Commission combined extensive research, expert analysis, and one of the largest public consultations in Canadian healthcare history. Through engagement with healthcare professionals, governments, Indigenous organizations, and tens of thousands of Canadians, th...

Qualitycast North is excited to bring you a special 4-episode series celebrating the 25-year anniversary of The Royal Commission on the Future of Health Care in Canada and the subsequent, ground-breaking, Romanow Report.

About the Royal Commission and Romanow Report
In 2001, the Federal government launched the landmark Romanow Commission, to examine the future of Canada’s publicly funded healthcare system. Led by Roy Romanow, the Commission combined extensive research, expert analysis, and one of the largest public consultations in Canadian healthcare history. Through engagement with healthcare professionals, governments, Indigenous organizations, and tens of thousands of Canadians, th...

Qualitycast North is excited to bring you a special 4-episode series celebrating the 25-year anniversary of The Royal Commission on the Future of Health Care in Canada and the subsequent, ground-breaking, Romanow Report.

About the Royal Commission and Romanow Report
In 2001, the Federal government launched the landmark Romanow Commission, to examine the future of Canada’s publicly funded healthcare system. Led by Roy Romanow, the Commission combined extensive research, expert analysis, and one of the largest public consultations in Canadian healthcare history. Through engagement with healthcare professionals, governments, Indigenous organizations, and tens of thousands of Canadians, th...

Qualitycast North is excited to bring you a special 4-episode series celebrating the 25-year anniversary of The Royal Commission on the Future of Health Care in Canada and the subsequent, ground-breaking, Romanow Report.

About the Royal Commission and Romanow Report
In 2001, the Federal government launched the landmark Romanow Commission, to examine the future of Canada’s publicly funded healthcare system. Led by Roy Romanow, the Commission combined extensive research, expert analysis, and one of the largest public consultations in Canadian healthcare history. Through engagement with healthcare professionals, governments, Indigenous organizations, and tens of thousands of Canadians, th...

In this episode we’re returning to the rural community of Hazleton in Northwest BC. The demand for psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy is increasing as word spreads about its usefulness, but how should one design this service that best meets the clinical, social and cultural needs of its patients? 

That’s the subject of Dr. Graham Bergstra’s quality improvement project. By asking patients directly about their experience of care before, during and after their clinic visit, Dr. Bergstra explains how we can improve patient’s experience of anxiety, vulnerability and satisfaction, whilst also ensuring they receive the most appropria...

When you think of Canadian health data, the organization that springs immediately to mind is the Canadian Institute for Health Information or CIHI. 
In this episode we interview Anderson Chuck, the President and CEO of CIHI, about how Canada is “data rich but information poor” and how using Pan-Canadian health data in the right way can drive improvements in health care quality. 
We also discuss how adopting the right data "mindset" can ensure sustainable Canadian healthcare in the future and improve economic resilience and prosperity for Canada as a nation.
Links:
CIHI(En)
CIHI(Fr)
Can...

Delivering high-quality, emergency medicine education to rural practitioners and their teams for over 15 years, the Rural Coordination Centre of British Columbia’s CARE course has been consistently rated amongst the best. But what are the secrets to its success? 

This week we interview its creators Dr. Jel Coward and Dr. Rebecca Lindley, both rural family docs based in Pemberton BC, on how delivering education that meets learners where they are, understands their reality and recognizes their humanity, provides the best learning environment possible.

Links:

Rural Coordination Centre of BC - The CARE course
...

This week we’re returning to the Executive C-Suite this time from a Physician’s perspective with our guest Dr. Ronald Chapman, the Vice President of Medicine of Northern Health. 
We talk about his early commitment to a medical administrative career track, what a VP of Medicine does, his 13-year longevity in the role and what it takes to steer a large healthcare organization on a course towards higher quality care. 
We also touch on the benefits and challenges of living and working in rural communities and, if given his time again, why he wouldn’t consider any other jo...

This week we’re taking a well-deserved week off and so in preparation for this year’s Rural Coordination Centre of BC’s Rural Health Conference to be held in Prince George on May 29-31st, we’re re-releasing one of our favorite archived episodes featuring RCCbc’s own Dr. Ray Markham. In this episode, Dr. Markham takes us through his global career journey to his current practice in Valemount, NE BC, discusses some of the joys and challenges of rural family practice and shows us how rural primary care can also be high quality primary care. This recording was origin...

One of the largest drivers of health outcome inequity for patients living in rural communities is access to care. This disparity is magnified when combined with low income, reduced patient mobility and the high costs of travel to tertiary centers, usually located in larger cities. 
Tackling this inequity head on is Hope Air, a non-profit organization which provides a lifeline for rural patients to access tertiary, specialist care. Currently celebrating Hope Air’s 40th anniversary, today’s guest, Mark Rubinstein, the CEO or “Chief Hope Officer” of Hope Air takes us through its incredible mission and gives us an insight i...

In this episode, we return to Bulkley Valley District Hospital in Smithers, Northwest BC who, by combining high-level collaboration between local physicians, front line staff and operational leaders with quality improvement methodology, have generated startling improvements in what matters to staff throughout the hospital. 
Today’s guest Dr. Kalah Blackstock, a local family physician and the Physician Quality Improvement Advisor for Northern Health takes us through their work building a healthier and more satisfied workforce whilst at the same time delivering a QI masterclass in multi-stakeholder collaboration and problem solving. 
Special shout out from Dr. Blackstock to the incr...

As overfilled hospitals everywhere are struggling to cope with a busy winter of respiratory disease and influenza, many in healthcare are calling for a more “upstream” approach to preventing Emergency Department visits and hospital admissions. But intervening upstream is more difficult than it sounds. Today’s guests have done just this. Talking us through their award-winning, quality improvement work in reducing ED visits and hospital admissions for patients with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease are Donna Jouantapp, Lina Alsakran and Dr. Zoe Pullan from Cowichan on Vancouver Island. In this interview, we learn how a well-designed project with a dedicated, inclus...

Listeners will be familiar with the physician-led healthcare quality improvement work featured on this podcast, but they may not be familiar with how this work is formally supported at the Provincial level. In this episode, we interview Cindy Myles, the Vice President of the Specialist Services Committee, who gives us a primer on British Columbia’s unique, Joint Collaborative Committees and the importance of multipartite collaboration when addressing healthcare’s “wicked” problems. We hear how collaboration generates more sustainable change and how, during this challenging time for healthcare delivery, working together to improve the system can bring us hope for heal...

In our current technological age, the most successful information platforms are those that provide exactly the information the user needs quickly and accurately. This is the underlying premise behind British Columbia’s hugely successful medical information platform Pathways. In today’s episode we interview its two eminent founders Dr. Kathleen Ross and Dr. Tracy Monk, about its early origin story and how it developed into the universal healthcare provider directory and an amazing, multifunctional, timesaving and educational resource in its current form. We hear how their strong guiding principles drove development of Pathways’ form and function, how listening to users...

In this gem of an interview, we chat with Christina Krause, the CEO of Health Quality BC about a whole range of topics around patient safety from the role of Provincial quality and safety organizations and the new BC Patient Safety Strategy to what’s changed in our understanding of safer patient care. Through personal stories and experiences, Christina shares valuable insights into safer care through listening to patients’ and families, the importance of psychological safety, and why everyone should just take just a little more time to understand one another’s viewpoints. Listen and let Christina’s infectious enthusia...

In this episode we feature another award-winning, quality improvement project this time based in Victoria, Vancouver Island. Our guests are Alanna Summers, Program Manager and a registered psychiatric nurse, Jennifer Sandburg, Team Lead occupational therapist, and Jane Dolan, MHSU Clinical recreational therapist, from the South Island Mental Health and Substance Use team. Starting with the gap in care they first identified, they take us through how they developed their cost effective and successful Bridging Care program for patients in mental health crisis. This program not only provides effective, patient-centered care but has also reduced hospital admissions and inpatient length...

In this episode, we head upstream in our health system with this podcast’s first ever guests from the public health sector. Northern Health’s Medical Health Officer Dr. Diana Bark and Director of Public Health Lara Frederick take us through their QI work identifying, analyzing, and addressing a gap in dental health screening and dental caries prevention in pre-kindergarten age children in Northeast BC. We learn how QI methodology can be applied to complex problems in public health and how, through enhanced community engagement, their team provided valuable, preventative, dental care and improved health equity at the same time.
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Visiting specialist clinics are a lifeline for patients with chronic disease in rural and remote communities across the North. They save patients travel time and costs and also provide care in context of their own local communities and available supports. But patient non-attendance at these clinics can negatively impact the quality of their longitudinal care leading to increased morbidity. In this episode, Dr. Angela How takes us through her quality improvement work based at her rural visiting specialist rheumatology clinic in Hazelton improving patient attendance through a culturally safe approach incorporating motivational interviewing techniques. At the same time, we hear...

Our topic in this episode is the power and potential of good data for improving patient care. In a broad ranging interview with our guests Dr. Cole Stanley and Gayle Grout from Health Data Coalition (HDC), we hear about the origins and goals of HDC and how the aggregation of primary care electronic medical record data can provide Primary Care providers reassurance and drive improvements in care. We talk about the importance of feedback loops, the benefits and dangers of comparison and how such data can support a whole system quality approach. HDC is a great example of a how...

As season 4 comes to and end and we enter our 5th year of the podcast with season 5, Shyr and Lee reflect on their favourite highlights from last season. With twice as many episodes as previous seasons, there was a lot to choose from and of course all our guests left an indelible impression. What can we look forward to in the season ahead? More great Quality Improvement projects, high profile guests and maybe even one or two surprises. Don’t want to miss an episode? Subscribe to our channel on Spotify, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

From a healthcare quality perspective, you can’t get much better than the Mayo Clinic. Its global reputation for high quality patient care is unsurpassed. But what exactly makes the Mayo Clinic so good and what can other institutions learn from how the Mayo Clinic does business? To find out, the Doctors of BC recently arranged for a group of British Columbian physicians to visit the Mayo Clinic in Arizona, to hear, see and experience how they deliver care. To talk about their learnings and key takeaways from that trip are today’s guests, Dr. Kalah Blackstock a family physician in S...

Residents in British Columbia are no strangers to wildfires which have increased in number and ferocity over recent years. But when an out-of-control wildfire threatens a town, its residents and its healthcare facilities, it rapidly turns into a nightmare come true. The sudden need for healthcare facility evacuation is a recipe for potential chaos and confusion and poses increased risks for patients and care home residents. To talk about their amazing and award-winning Quality Improvement work in reducing the risks of emergency healthcare facility evacuation are today’s guests from Health Emergency Management BC (HEM BC) Gloria Hertz and John Co...

This week we’re returning to Northern Health’s C-Suite and interview Nicole Cross, Northern Health’s Vice President of Indigenous Health and Chief Planning and Quality Officer. In this treat of an episode, we cover a wide range of topics including her career journey from entry-level Indigenous Patient Liaison to the Northern Health’s Executive C-suite. Nicole explains her vision for engaging patients and communities in their own care and care system; how openness and transparency is the key to how the system learns and why quality should be embedded and not optional in our healthcare system, before finishing with a h...

When those in short term police custody need acute medical care, getting them that care presents logistic problems often resulting in time consuming and labor-intensive visits to the local hospital emergency department with police escorts. This week’s guest is Dr. Michelle Brousson, a family physician in North Vancouver, who talks to us about her innovative solution for this complex problem providing the care these patients need without having to leave the police station, providing a win-win solution for everyone involved. During this episode Dr. Brousson provides us with a project masterclass on engaging and listening to stakeholders and delivering ed...

Taking on your first leadership role as a physician can be a daunting prospect. New physician leaders can feel ill-prepared and ill-equipped when thrust into these positions. But it turns out training and experience in Quality Improvement can help prepare new physician leaders as many of QI skills translate directly into leadership. Our guest today is Dr. Gurpreet Narang, a radiologist based at the University Hospital of Northern British Columbia in Prince George who busts some of the myths surrounding physician leadership and tells us how to avoid that “deer in the headlights” moment commonly encountered by newbie physician leaders in t...

Returning to the podcast is everyone’s favourite physician QI coach and social media maven Dr. Lawrence Yang. He’s a family doc, physician wellness advocate and QI coach but is probably most well well-known for his social media presence and legions of posted selfies with fellow Quality Improvers. In this interview we go deep as Lawrence explains the importance of connection and mutual support within the QI community as well as his own personal motivation behind his networking superpower. We also talk about self-compassion, the dangers of working in silos, generational attitudes to work and identifying as ‘whole people’.

L...

It’s a problem which we read and hear about in the media on an all too regular basis. But violence and mental health is not only a problem on our city streets, it’s also an issue in our hospitals. This week’s guest is Northern psychiatrist Dr. Barb Kane. In this episode we talk about why violence and mental health is such a big problem, how it came about and her proposed Northern solution.

Links: Read about and sign the petition at change.org

Patients with alcohol use disorder (AUD) are some of the heaviest users of western healthcare resources and particularly emergency departments. Effective treatments for alcohol use disorder have recently become available but only a very small proportion of eligible AUD receive treatment. To talk about their excellent quality improvement work in identifying eligible AUD patients and directing them towards appropriate care from the emergency department, are our two guests today, Dr. Aron Zuidhof, Medical Director for Emergency Services in Interior Health and Dorrie Fasick, Transformational Lead for the Interior Health Emergency Services Network. They talk us through the groundbreaking, wrap-around, care-pathway...

British Columbia’s Physician Quality Improvement (PQI) program celebrates its 8th birthday this year. Since inception, this program has produced amazing improvement work some of which we’ve showcased on this podcast. PQI has also generated a culture shift towards quality amongst the physician community throughout the province. Our special guest today is Dr. Curt Smecher, aka “Papa QI”, the person responsible for PQIs original vision and first training cohort. In this episode, we talk to Curt about PQI’s humble beginnings, the progress and impact of the program to date and its exciting next phase. We also hear how redefining...

In this special “mic swap” episode, Lee Cameron and guest co-host Dr. Gurpreet Narang turn the tables on our regular co-host Shyr Chui to ask him about his journey into QI, some of his current projects and memorable highlights from over 20 years of QI work. Amongst other things, we touch on Whole System Quality, building strong QI teams, artificial intelligence and what gets him out of bed every morning.

Links:
IHI White paper on Whole System Quality (Juran’s Quality Trilogy)
Qualitystream North

Today’s guest is a giant and well-respected figure in British Columbian Emergency Medicine. In addition to his many research and quality improvement projects, Dr. Jim Christenson helped create the British Columbia Emergency Medicine Network improving the quality of emergency care across the province. But far from slowing down in retirement, he’s continued pioneering work, turning his attention to the rural, indigenous communities on the west coast of Vancouver Island. In this insightful and moving interview Dr. Christenson talks about the current state of healthcare in these remote communities, the challenges of addressing inequity, his personal motivation for this work...

In the second part of our interview with Northern Rural Family Physician, Dr. Ray Markham, we discuss some of his leadership work supporting rural communities across the province through the Rural Coordination Centre of BC. We discuss how to build a provincial support network and how the constraints of geography and remoteness can be turned to advantage by fueling innovation to improve care “at the edge”.

Links:
Partnership Pentagram
RCCbc

Each year, the Institute of Healthcare Improvement holds its annual forum in December. Over 4 days, between 3 to 4 thousand healthcare quality improvers from across the world join together for a packed program of workshops, QI project reports, improvement science education and keynote lectures from renown speakers. This year, a large contingent of Canadians made the trip including some from Northern British Columbia so we decided to bring these Northern Physicians together for a fun panel discussion about their experiences and what they learned from this year’s forum. This is the recording of that discussion moderated by our regular Qualitycast North ho...

If you’re ever tempted to think medicine is practised the same everywhere in British Columbia, think again. Small rural communities present specific challenges to healthcare delivery due to their size and location, no more so than in the North where we also have long, snowy winters to contend with. That’s not to say that rural care can’t be high quality care. Providing valuable insights into rural family practice is today’s guest Dr. Ray Markham. This interview was so good we split it into two separate episodes. In this first part, Ray talks about his rural, generalist practice...

We’re returning to Northeast BC today and the subject might make some listeners squirm a little in their seats. We talk to Dr. Damian Fay, a rural GP and sexual health practitioner based in Hudson’s Hope about his QI work improving his vasectomy service. We talk about the challenges patients experience in accessing care in the North before the conversation takes a lighthearted turn towards the pros and cons of living and working in the north, craft beer and a novel way to get your triathlon track times down. 

We’ve showcased a lot of excellent physician-led quality improvement work on this podcast with its corresponding positive impact on patient care. But what is the effect of doing this work on the physicians themselves? Talking about the benefits of doing QI on her day-to-day work, life and career is today’s guest Dr. Daisy Dulay, a cardiologist based in Victoria, BC. In this episode we discuss career paths, purpose, rediscovering joy in our work and “slow medicine”.

Links:
Northern Health PQI
Spreading Quality Improvement | SSC

Recruitment and retention of front-line staff is a major challenge across healthcare systems globally right now, and no more so than in small, rural communities across Northern British Columbia. Today’s guest Dr. Kate Niethammer, a rural GP and obstetrician based in Smithers, BC, explains how she, using a QI approach and asking what mattered to them, was able to reverse nurse shortages and help re-establish full staffing levels in her unit. In this episode we talk about the benefits of living in the North and the universal power of pizza.

Links: 
Institute of Healthcare Improvement (IHI) Fra...