MC: Keith Baldrey, Global TV

Honourable Kevin Falcon, Minister of Health Services, Government of British Columbia

The Future of Health Care in B.C. - Health Services Minister Kevin Falcon will speak about the future of B.C.'s health care system and how change and innovation can help to manage growing health-care costs in order to ensure a sustainable system for our children and grandchildren.

Councillor Brian Elie, Okanagan Nation and the Westbank First Nation

Richard C. Alvarez, President and CEO, Canada Health Infoway

As Canadians observe the changes in health care systems around the world, we are engaging in a broader discussion regarding the progress of Canada’s electronic health record initiative and its potential to ensure not only better care for the patient but also the improved access, quality and productivity of health care. As a country we are working to make electronic health records available for all Canadians. And we are seeing concrete progress particularly in such areas as drug information systems, telehealth and digital diagnostic imaging. Richard Alvarez will provide an overview of Canada’s e-health experience and its emerging value in patient care and health care sustainability

John Dyble, Deputy Minister, Ministry of Health, Province of British Columbia

"Change and Innovation in the BC Health System: Meeting Need and Managing Demand"

Health systems around the world face similar challenges of meeting current need for high quality health care while simultaneously ensuring that the system will also be capable of meeting those needs into the future. This presentation first highlights the issues from the perspective of the British Columbia health system and then outlines the Government of British Columbia’s response to this challenge. This response is an aggressive transformation agenda focusing on four elements; effective promotion and prevention, an integrated system of primary and community care, high quality and effective hospital and emergency services when needed, and improved innovation, productivity and efficiency within the system.

Clinical Transformation: Health Analytics and Performance Management

Speakers:

1. Lead Speaker: Alan Brookstone, - Partner, The ClearView Group - Solutions for Health

   Achieving Meaningful Use of EMRs in Canada
   Whether a new user or transitioning from one EMR to another, running an EMR-based practice is a state of mind. Many physicians and office staff never fully utilize their EMRs beyond a very basic level. The 2007 National Physician Survey suggested that less than 10% of physicians use their EMRs effectively. This is partly because many users see their EMR as an electronic version of the paper record. However, the EMR opens up a great number of opportunities that were never possible in a paper record. Dr. Brookstone will focus on differences between the US and Canadian strategies to encourage adoption and use of EMRs. He will also discuss strategies to encourage Meaningful Use of EMRs. These strategies are highly dependent on effective use and the development of self-sufficient practices that strive to improve their performance. In addition, he will look to the future of EMRs and how they could be used for more effective population health, integrated with mobile devices and personal health records.

2. Pat Finerty, Vice President, Alliances and Business Development, SAS

   Health Analytics and Performance Management in the Canadian Marketplace Pro-active planning of health services delivery … effective data integration systems... the liberation of clinical performance data. These are just a few examples of how SAS’ health care clients are successfully implementing analytics and performance management initiatives. In this session, Pat Finerty will share these stories and more from clients including the Ministry of Long Term Care of Ontario; Institute for Clinical and Evaluative Studies; GE Healthcare; and the Niagara Health System.

3. Brantz Myers, Director, Healthcare Business Development - Canada Cisco Systems

   Although there is currently much focus on the Electronic Health Record (EHR), technology can transform health care in many more ways. To achieve high-quality health care, interactions among people, information, equipment and resources should be maximized. These connections can be facilitated and enhanced by technology. Brantz Myers will discuss the link between intelligent hospitals and how they can dynamically help the people who use the facilities: healthcare providers, clinicians, patients, visitors and others. By simplifying the connections from any person, any place, through any device to any resource, real value can be delivered to the end-points the people. He will talk about what has been learned from past attempts and what is now possible. Finally, he will discuss why executive strategic attention must consider this role of technology, although it can be complex, have challenges and sources of resistance. He will illustrate how the increasing technology investment in today’s hospitals can be leveraged to create a more sustainable environment and have a direct impact on health care.

4. Alison Tonge, Executive Vice President, Strategy & Performance, Alberta Health Services

   Measure to Improve – Alberta Health Services is guiding its focus on integrated analytics and performance management, to enable major clinical service improvements. This is supported by an ambitious data integration mandate for building a provincial data repository for service improvement and research.

Dale Potter, CIO, The Ottawa Hospital, sponsored by Oracle

Due to a convergence of difficult macro-economic & demographic trends, health-care organizations across Canada and the globe face unprecedented financial pressures. As these pressures continue to grow over the next decade, finding new approaches to reduce administrative costs is more critical than ever if organizations are to preserve precious resources for actual patient care. The Ottawa Hospital has demonstrated executive leadership in implementing highly effective strategies to reduce administrative costs through the use of consolidated information systems and shared business services to streamline many common accounting, procurement, and human resource management functions. The Ottawa Hospital's Chief Information Officer, Dale Potter, will review their successful strategies, as well as specific experience & results by the Ottawa Hospital on shared services initiatives.

Jose Mussi, Principal Partner, JRS Partners Inc.

Canadian governments have invested or committed over $3B for the deployment of EHRs across the country. With the help of Canada Health Infoway, jurisdictions have begun to rollout new services at the provincial and regional levels that are mostly targeted at the acute care and diagnosis settings. With the recently announced funding for EMR adoption, the community health setting becomes front and centre. It is the next frontier of eHealth solutions and one that will require new thinking and leadership. José will present findings and lessons learned from his initial work on this area and suggest directions for further investigation and investments.

Management Resource - Creating Capacity in the Workforce

Mark Dixon, Vice President of Business Development, TELUS Sourcing Solutions

Creating Capacity
With an aging workforce, prices for talent constantly rising and competition from the private sector, attracting and retaining good employees in the healthcare sector will continue to be a major challenge. It will take courage to look at new systems and ways of doing business to help ensure that there is enough talent in the public sector to continue to deliver the key services the public has come to rely on and expect. Today, innovative leaders in human resources and talent management are already poking their heads above the rest and using new technology, techniques and HR strategies to fill their vacancies and create more capacity within their systems.

From Well-Connected to Well-Being: How Web 2.0 will Help Transform Healthcare

Nadeem Ahmed, Managing Director, Healthcare, xwave, a division of Bell Aliant

From well-connected to well-being: How Web 2.0 will help transform healthcare The interoperable electronic health record (EHR) is the springboard for patient-centric care; however, it’s the individual health record (IHR) — combined with the collaborative qualities of Web 2.0 — that will give consumers a key to the healthcare vault. We will look beyond the EHR to the IHR, discussing not only the infrastructure but also the collective mindset that must be in place to effectively support patient-centric care.

Health Care Transformation: Collaboration across Organizations, Communities and Citizens.

Moderator: Philip Barker, VP Information Management, Fraser Health Authority

Speakers:

1. Todd Genton, Strategy & Transformation – Canadian Leader, Global Business Services, IBM
   Shared Services: The Next Frontier Budget cuts. Aging populations. Rising patient expectations. To address these challenges while managing costs, healthcare organizations must transform how they work, collaborate and serve. With insights from IBM’s own shared services experience, learn how you can modernize IT infrastructures, improve processes, empower communities and promote accountability. Deliver better healthcare – by meeting your challenges with shared services solutions.
2. Joe Gallagher, CEO First Nations Health Council
   A new First Nations Health Authority- Sharing Services
   The Tripartite First Nations Health Plan signed in 2007 calls for the development of a BC First Nations Health Authority. A first for Canada, this new First Nations Health Authority will put unprecedented decision-making in the hands of First Nations. In this presentation Mr. Gallagher will outline why this change is necessary, what we can learn from international experiences with Indigenous health governance, and the shared services potential arising from such a transfer of authority.
3. David Le Penske, Microsoft Health Solutions, Group Lead for Canada
   Re-Charting a Path Forward – Imagine if we could all use the data...
   From a regional and jurisdictional perspective, Canada is wrestling with the same fundamental global health challenges that present hard problems to solve – access, costs, improving quality of care, how to deal with the changing demographics, and so on. We all recognize and accept that the current trends are unsustainable for a number of reasons. This conversation will offer near term prospective on how technology will help you meaningfully and efficiently transform these challenges across system, organizational and citizen divides.

Grand Chief Doug Kelly (Tseem Th'ewali), First Nations Summit, British Columbia

Health gaps between BC First Nations and other British Columbians continue to exist. In his keynote address, Grand Chief Kelly will describe the recent efforts of BC First Nations to come together to close the jurisdictional gap that exists between federal, provincial and First Nations health governance through the development of a new First Nations Health Authority.

MC: Keith Baldrey, Global TV

Honourable Mary McNeil, Minister of Citizens’ Services, Multiculturalism and the Public Affairs Bureau

Bert Phipps, Chief Operating Officer, Shared Services BC

Shared Services as a Support for Optimizing Resource Utilization in Healthcare Shared Services BC is transforming to help government better meet its priorities.

By managing infrastructure and costs more effectively, his ministry and broader public sector colleagues are better able to meet their clients’ needs.

In the health care field, shared services and the use of new technologies provide incredible opportunities to free up resources ... allowing health care professionals to focus on the priorities of patient care.

Workforce Transformation... Transforming the Health Care Workforce

Arden Krystal, Vice President, Clinical Operations and, Noni Eastman, Director of Workforce Optimization, Fraser Health Authority

Continuing shortages of skilled workers, over capacity issues and increasing workplace complexity have created a burden on our front line managers and care givers affecting their ability to give quality care and feel meaningful in their work. Workforce Optimization promotes the use of strategic workforce management, engaging employees to lead implementation of effective business practices in their work. Using a partnership approach, workforce optimization creates energy, synergy, and opportunity. Proactive planning focused on targeted results helps to achieve the right results, increased capacity and sustainability of our healthcare system

Clinical Transformation Enabled by IT

Moderator: Barry Rivelis, Chief Information Officer, BC Provincial Health Services Authority

Speakers:

1. Dr. Francis Lau, Professor, School of Health Information Science University of Victoria

   Improving clinical adoption of information technology thru rapid response evaluation

   Adoption of health information systems by clinicians remains a challenge for many organizations. The eHealth Observatory has been working on developing a rapid response evaluation method toolkit that can be used to evaluate the deployment, use and effects of HIS. This presentation will provide an overview of the toolkit and how it is being used to improve adoption of electronic medical records in physician offices

2. Dr. Jigar S. Patel, Physician Executive, Cerner Corp.

   Beyond Implementation, CPOE, and Adoption: The Next Frontier in Clinical Transformation.
   Implementation, CPOE, and adoption are critical aspects of clinical transformation and dominate our current IT conversations. As we achieve these goals, new topics will emerge as the next frontier in clinical transformation and will fundamentally alter the practice of medicine. Continuous quality improvement, population management, EMR enabled research, and personalized medicine, among others, will rely on the foundation we are laying with today's clinical transformation projects.

3. Laura Waltrip, Healthcare Consulting Director, Dell Services

   Sustaining the Gain: “Making Transformation Part of Your Electronic Health Record Implementation”
   To achieve sustainable transformational benefits, we must change clinical work patterns, tools and culture to optimize the alignment of people and processes with enabling technology to ensure that the patient receives optimal service and care at the optimal time with the most efficient use of resources. The aim of this discussion is to show how using an evidence based framework and methodology will benefit the planning and implementation of an Electronic Health Record and how embedding proven transformation and change management as part of the implementation helps achieve sustainable results.

Sustaining the Shared Services Organization: The top 3 issues facing Shared Services Executives in creating a viable long term shared services organization incorporating and highlighting the major issue of adoption strategies.

Moderator: Elaine McKnight, ADM, Ministry of Health Services

Speakers:

1. Michael Long, Chief Information Officer, Alberta Health Services
2. Jeannie Wexler, Executive Lead, BC Health Authority Shared Services Organization
3. Michael MacDougall, Chief Operating Officer, Ministry of Health Services

MC: Keith Baldrey, GlobalTV