Essential Digital Health for the Underserved: Establishing an Equitable Learning Health System for Virtual Care
The Learning health system (LHS) approach is a popular framework that many policy makers and health administrators are employing to introduce continuous quality improvement and improve the cost effectiveness of health services in their jurisdictions. How can this LHS approach engage communities, patients and industries to join health policy makers and health professionals to increase equity of access of care?
This presentation will introduce how a national technology enabled care conference turned its attention to using digital health to support equity deserving populations, and how to introduce the deliberative dialogue method to focus on equity-informed virtual care in BC. A dialogue was held last year with Indigenous and rural community members, policy makers, health administrators, health practitioners, and health services researchers. The central aim was to advance health equity for rural, remote, and Indigenous communities, with the dialogue centered on optimizing patient journeys and community experiences so as to develop a set of recommendations for all relevant stakeholders to collaborate on the delivery and improvement of virtual care. This deliberative dialogue approach is essential in the relationship and trust building needed yet often overlooked in LHS framework.
The presenters will show how UBC Digital Emergency Medicine incorporates deliberative dialogue into our LHS tool kit, and invite participants to share their experiences to promote knowledge exchange.
Speakers
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Dr. Kendall Ho
Professor, UBC Faculty of Medicine Department of Emergency Medicine / Lead, Digital Emergency Medicine, UBC / Medical Director, HealthlinkBC 8-1-1
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Dr. Kendall Ho is an emergency medical specialist in Vancouver, a professor in the UBC Faculty of Medicine Department of Emergency Medicine and a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada. He leads the Digital Emergency Medicine Unit and is recognized for his ground-breaking research in digital health. Dr. Ho is the medical director of HealthlinkBC 8-1-1 virtual physician service. He works with B.C. and Canadian governments, non-government organizations and other health policy agencies to support evidence-informed policy translation in digital health.
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Dr. Helen Novak Lauscher
Associate Lead, Digital Emergency Medicine, UBC
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Dr. Helen Novak Lauscher is Associate Lead of Digital Emergency Medicine at UBC, where she leads a team working on research and evaluation in digital health, virtual care, and patient and public engagement in health contexts from acute to community. With a doctorate in educational psychology, her areas of specialty include participatory approaches to research and evaluation, qualitative methods, and understanding collaboration and relationships in virtual/hybrid settings.
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Ms. Joan Assali
Program Manager, Digital Emergency Medicine, UBC
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Ms. Joan Assali is Program Manager at UBC Digital Emergency Medicine, leading the Virtual Care Portfolio with a focus on evaluating virtual care models, particularly through the Learning Health systems approach. She specializes in monitoring, evaluation accountability and learning aimed at improving digital health care for priority deserving populations. Joan's areas of expertise include international management and development, integrated knowledge translation, continuous quality improvement, and the development of evaluation frameworks that support the effective implementation of virtual healthcare services. Her work highlights the importance of stakeholder engagement and data-driven insights to inform strategic decisions to inform policy and enhance healthcare delivery for equity deserving communities and groups.
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