Innovation
We reduce the distance between the lab and the bedside, bringing integrated teams together to transform care through evidence based innovation.
We reduce the distance between the lab and the bedside, bringing integrated teams together to transform care through evidence-based innovation. Partner driven by design, our innovation model allows us to bring private and public sector expertise together to lead improvements in care and health outcomes and accelerate the adoption of advancements across the system.
Building Capacity for Innovation & Change
With the redevelopment of the New St. Paul’s Hospital on the horizon, creating the capacity for change and innovation will support the new practices, models of care and technologies that are envisioned.
The Innovation team at Providence launched an online innovation network to foster connections across PHC and increase interdisciplinary and inter-practice collaboration, supporting both innovation and clinical transformation. The PHC Innovation Network supports both entrepreneurs, who use business acumen, ideas, and capital to start their own business with their own resources, and intrapreneurs, who use the same enterprising concepts as an entrepreneur but apply it to starting something within their organization, with tools, techniques, and online courses.
Looking ahead, the next year will see the launch of Innovation Challenges – a call to action for innovators across PHC to bring their expertise and creativity to improve patient care and safety and participate in clinical transformation initiatives.
To support and develop PHC leaders in their innovation journey, the Leading Health Innovation and Intrapreneurship course will be offered for the first time in 2017 as part of the Innovation Module of the Experience Pathway program, PHC’s leadership program. The course focuses on leading and supporting innovation and change efforts and building the skills and competencies needed to evaluate and scale innovation efforts along PHC’s innovation pathway.
More compassionate and dignified care
For some people with dementia, personal care can be unpleasant and frightening. A team of nursing staff set to work on finding a solution that allowed for someone’s privacy and dignity to be maintained during care, while allowing staff the opportunity to step away when necessary without the person being left undressed.
The “prototype” for the Cover and Comfort Wrap was initially sewn by a VCH Dementia CARE Team staff member, with additional covers made by a PHC staff member’s mother.
The Cover and Comfort Wrap was born out of a cross-organizational brainstorm with the VCH Dementia CARE Team. The wrap is made with visually engaging fabric and diminishes people’s’ physical exposure during personal care, thereby reducing their emotional distress. Through its use, staff can provide necessary personal care with ease and, most importantly, greater dignity and comfort for the person.
The Providence Health Care Office of Innovation & Strategic Partnerships stepped in to support the continued development of the Wrap, working with the team at Parkview, where the wrap was launched, to develop a plan to bring the concept to fruition. This includes product development with an industry partner, product validation and identifying appropriate funding opportunities, such as Canadian Centre for Aging & Brain Health Innovation’s (CC-ABHI) Spark program.
Access at your fingertips
Ease of communication is essential for staff to work effectively. To aid in this, the PHC Physicians and Surgeons Association and the Office of Innovation and Strategic Partnerships created a directory of commonly called numbers at St. Paul’s and Mount Saint Joseph’s hospitals.
This free, easily navigated mobile app puts these numbers at staff’s fingertips, eliminating the time spent searching on the intranet or being patched through on the switchboard. The PHC Directory App was initiated by the PHC Physicians and Surgeons Association.
Innovating care to better serve vulnerable patients
The HUB model of care is set to transform emergency access, treatment and follow-up for people with mental health and substance use challenges.
The HUB offers a line of sight to the future, the new St. Paul’s and our vision of innovative, evidence-based solutions to complex care needs. Comprised of two sites (the HUB ED and the Vancouver Police Foundation Transitional Care Centre), and located in vacant courtyards at St. Paul’s Hospital, this purpose-built treatment centre will reduce Emergency Department congestion and integrate acute and community services on site, providing improvements in patient care to vulnerable populations.
Graphic rendering of the care experience within the clinical HUB ED unit.
”Through solutions like the HUB, the Innovation Office is working to accelerate ways to improve both the quality of care and health outcomes for our patients; it’s the first of many future care-model innovations our Office will evaluate for their suitability at the future St. Paul’s,” says Shauna Turner, Chief Innovation Officer, Providence Health Care.
Having the ability to deliver leading-edge care while still at the current St. Paul’s site through the testing and trialing of concepts like the HUB allows Providence Health Care to hone processes, innovate care delivery, and solidify our credibility with industry, research, and community partners instrumental to the success of the new St. Paul’s. It is truly a forward-thinking innovation in action.