Fall 2018 Highlights: AFHTO Leadership Councils

Below are the highlights from the fall 2018 joint meeting of AFHTO’s Executive Director Advisory Council (EDAC), Physician Leadership Council (PLC), Board Chair Leadership Council (BCLC), NPLC Leadership Council (NPLC LC), and IHP Advisory Council.

Governance tools are now here!
Based on the needs identified by the Board Chair Leadership Council, the following governance tools are now available:

• Lead Executive Performance Guide – The guide offers boards a simple and straightforward process to follow when conducting the annual performance evaluation for their lead executive.
• Provincial Primary Care Policies and Procedures Manual – A provincial document that teams can leverage internally to help with policy development, or externally to support non-affiliated physicians in their communities.
• Collaborative Governance Case Studies – Thinking about becoming a more collaborative board? Read these success stories!
• Shared Care Model Agreement – Is your team expanding care to patients of unaffiliated physicians? A shared care model agreement is now ready to support you!

Governing Through Healthcare Transformation – Workshop

• The “Governing Through Healthcare Transformation: Leading Practices in Effective Governance and Collaborative Governance” workshop was well attended at the conference. Missed the workshop? The workbook and presentation are here.

Leadership training continues

• Dates for the 2019 LeaderShift programs have been announced. Registration for the spring LEADS Learning Series cohorts open in January.
• The third LEADS LITE online learning series starts in January. The deadline for applications is December 7. Register here.
• New applied leadership e-learning opportunities are available! The first webinar – “How to Give Better Feedback” – is now open for registration. More information is here.

Members’ priorities for improvement

• Based on member input, a focus on 7-day discharge follow-up after hospitalization is a priority. Members can track their team’s work on follow-up by using the team-based definition of follow-up developed by AFHTO members.
• D2D 6.0 showed high participation in measurement. Moderate contribution of “team characteristics” data to make it possible to answer the question: what are the characteristics of teams that tend to improve and/or have high performance? Contact AFHTO staff to complete the “team characteristics” survey.
• AFHTO is looking at aggregate data to give to the group at Queen’s University to help with the research agenda to show team-based care does improve patient outcomes. Interested teams can contact the QIDS team at improve@afhto.ca
• The IHP council will work on measuring outcomes and the value of IHPs. Encourage your IHPs to connect with their IHP council to participate in an ongoing research project that will help demonstrate the value of IHPs in team-based care.

Advocacy with your MPP

• AFHTO is working with H&K Strategies to develop materials that align with the new government’s priorities. Final material is expected by early January.
• Members are encouraged to schedule meetings with their MPPs.
• It is important to build a relationship. MPPs want to hear from their constituents, particularly front-line providers and patients.
• Start to collect good news patient stories to share with MPPs. Please also share these with AFHTO to assist with central communications in demonstrating the value of team-based care.
• High-level support is here. More information and guidelines will be ready soon. Stay tuned!

The patient enrollment model (PEM) and story telling

• The current narrative from government is that there are challenges with the PEM model. It is important we ensure that the government sees its benefit.
• We need to change the narrative, so that government understands what PEMs do, the value they bring, and how they result in better outcomes for patients.
• The OMA is encouraging teams to write their stories to the ministry. If you do so, please forward a copy to AFHTO so we can share it with the OMA negotiations team. Please do not copy AFHTO directly.

Communication with the ministry and LHIN

• AFHTO is working to ensure the committed 3-year recruitment and retention dollars are protected.
• With the line-by-line audit underway, the future of ministry funding for AFHTO’s programs (Governance and Leadership, and Quality Improvement Decision Support) remains unknown.
• AFHTO has been working to develop a Primary Care Multi-Sector Accountability Agreement (M-SAA), so teams can receive one-time or project funding directly from the LHINs. This is on hold as the LHINs focus on getting approved funding out.
• Timing for further conversation with the LHINs is unknown.
• AFHTO will continue to keep members updated as we learn more.

2018 conference wrapped up!

• Thanks to all members who completed the feedback form to help AFHTO prepare for the 2019 conference. Preparation will begin early next year!

Any questions or comments, please contact Bryn Hamilton, Provincial Lead for the Governance & Leadership program.