The Future of KT

1
The Future of KT
Trends Issues

• Harley Dickinson
• Department of Sociology

QEOL Research Group Workshop
August 22,
2006 University of Saskatchewan
2
Introduction

• My background
• HEALNet NCE
• KUPI
• CKT
• Two Psychiatries

3
Topics of Discussion

• The Professions KT
• Health Reforms the Professions
• Post-professional work teams
• Multi-, Inter-, and Trans-Disciplinarity KT

4
Professions KT

• Professions as the means for applying knowledge
  as work
• Includes scientific technical as well as
  ethical knowledge
• Issues of KT understood within this framework

5
Health Reforms the Professions

• Health Reforms Challenge Professional Knowledge
  Work Processes
• Knowledge System Processes
• Creation (research)
• Transfer (education)
• Application (practice)
• Work Processes
• From Professional to Multi-, Inter-, or
  Trans-disciplinary

6
Health Knowledge System

• A complex system of systems
• Research (knowledge creation)
• Education/Training (knowledge transfer)
• Practice (knowledge application)
• Knowledge system processes present within
  between knowledge subsystems

7
Emerging Health Knowledge System Processes

• Coordination between knowledge sub-systems
• HSDC
• SAHSN
• Coordination within knowledge sub-systems
• Research sub-system
• CIHR, CHSRF, SSHRC, SHRF
• Education sub-system
• SWITCH, Interprofessional Education for
  Collaborative Patient-Centered Practice (IECPCP),
  P-CITE
• Practice sub-system
• Electronic Health Records (EHRs)
• HQC

8
Saskatchewan Academic Health Sciences Network

• Mandate - to enhance clinical services, conduct
  health research, and educate future health care
  professionals through the joint and collaborative
  relationship of its interdependent partners.
• Partners - Saskatoon Health Authority, the U of
  S, Regina Qu-Appelle Health Authority, other
  provincial Health Authorities, and the Province
  of Saskatchewan.
• Guiding principles - collaboration,
  interdependence, interdisciplinary practice, and
  an expansive definition of health.
• Focus - to develop the following areas of
  service, research teaching
• Primary health care research and delivery
• Core specialty services
• Integrated teaching and learning models for
  health professionals
• Strategically focused areas of bio-medical
  research
• Aboriginal health
• Population and community health
• http//www.saskhealthsciencesnetwork.usask.ca/

9
Interdisciplinary Collaborative Education

• Collaborative Patient-centered Practice
• enhances patient - family - and community
  centered goals and values
• provides mechanisms for continuous communication
  among care givers,
• optimizes staff participation in clinical
  decision-making (within and across disciplines)
• induces respect for the contributions of all
  disciplines including patients contributions to
  their own care.
• To promote a culture of collaborative
  patient-centered practice, the Federal.
  Governments Health Human Resource Strategy has
  chosen as one of its key initiatives the
  development and implementation of
  Interprofessional Education for Collaborative
  Patient-Centered Practice (IECPCP)
• http//www.hc-sc.gc.ca/hcs-sss/hhr-rhs/collabor/in
  dex_e.html

10
Patient-Centered Interdisciplinary Team
Experience (P-CITE)

• U of S project funded by IECPCP
• Training built around 4 patient/popn groups
• Children/Youth with Mental Health Problems
• Middle Aged Adults with Chronic Health Problems
• Elders Making Hospital to Community Transition
• Community Health Needs in Aboriginal Communities

11
Student Wellness Initiative Towards Community
Health (SWITCH)

• Student driven interdisciplinary wellness
  initiative that
• involves student volunteers from nine health
  disciplines four universities who work with
  clinic staff and interdisciplinary mentors
• extends the hours of the West Side Community
  Clinic
• conducts ancillary health programming at WSCC and
  White Buffalo Youth Lodge

12
Electronic Health Records

• One of the key means to achieve the five goals of
  health reform
• Reduce wait times
• Interdisciplinaery primary health care teams with
  greater emphasis on health promotion prevention
• Enhanced patient safety
• Improved quality of care
• Improved efficiency better value for money
• EHR is seen as way to address these priorities

13
EHR

• The benefits of the EHR grow over time as
  providers in particular exploit its potential to
  enhance communications, improve safety and
  quality by using decision support tools, expand
  the network of trusted colleagues, and generate
  valid performance measures and comparisons
• (Beyond Good Intentions, 2006)

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What This Means

• New forms of post-professional work organization,
  new technologies, and greater accountability
  through quality improvement processes will have
  substantial consequences for KT, especially in
  practice settings
• A Knowledge System approach will help focus
  attention on the interrelationships between
  knowledge creation, transfer and application at
  both the organizational and individual levels