What's Up Huntsville Lake of Bays July 2011 - Whatsupmuskoka.com

Looking
to the
future
Bracebridge and Muskoka Lakes
Secondary School will be offering a
specialized high skills major program
in health and wellness, allowing senior
students to work in co-op positions
in local health care outlets. The
program received final approval
from the Ministry on June 28.
“Our school was already offering
all the courses to supply the strands
necessary for the course,” says
teacher Jason Sprathoff, who is head
of health, physical education and
family studies for the school. “We
were offering the academics part, so
I did a little bit of research to see
where a lot of our kids are going, to
see if there was an interest.”
Out of graduating classes that
range from 150 to 200, he found, 30
to 40 students per year were going
into health or wellness related fields,
including nursing, fitness, early
childhood education and others.
So, after consulting with teachers
in other schools that had already put
high skills majors in place, and with
help at the school board level,
Sprathoff went ahead with the application
to provide the course.
What makes a high skills major
special is the co-op placements it
requires, giving students a leg up
both into post-secondary programs
and the workplace.
“We needed to identify locations
where our students would be able to
get four months of experience in the
sector,” says Steve Spiers, a pathways
consultant with the school board,
who aided in the application.
So far about 30 students have
signed up for the course, and that
will be narrowed down to 20 in
interviews, mostly students going
into Grade 11.
High skills major programs run
for two years, in Grades 11 and 12,
so next year’s Grade 12 students have
been cautioned that they won’t get
the full certification – though they’ll
still get the experience. The program
will be expanded more in future
years.
“My hope is that these kids that
are interested in health and wellness
will take it, and it will draw more
into health and wellness,” Sprathoff
notes. “The long-term goal is to get
them interested in health and wellness
earlier than college and university,
because health and wellness is an
area, especially in Muskoka, where
we’re going to need more people.”
Nurse practitioner Christine Fitchett takes a patient’s blood pressure.
attractive to health care professionals
considering where to locate.
A steering committee comprised of
representatives of health organizations,
educational institutes and municipal
governments was formed in response to
concerns raised by the district’s 2009
study. Its first project was an effort to
attract Muskoka’s youth cohort to the
health field at an even younger age and
persuade them to stay in their home
region for health careers. The result was
the Health Care Rocks in Muskoka
career day 2011. Held at the Bracebridge
Sportsplex on April 14, the event gathered
200 high school students from
throughout the district, letting them
spend time with health professionals.
They event included hands-on learning,
such as taking blood pressure and doing
first aid.
“For the remainder of the year, we’ll be
focusing on connecting with post-secondary
colleges and universities to network
with students and almost-graduates,
to tell them there are wonderful
health care opportunities in Muskoka,”
says Jean Broere, who was centrally
involved with the initiative.
Hughes notes Muskoka Algonquin
Healthcare is making great use of a new
mentorship program for graduate nurses
sponsored by the Ministry of Health and
Long-Term Care.
“When nurses graduate, they’re guaranteed
six months of work,” he says.
“They are in a formalized mentorship
program with another nurse, learning
what it means to have a full patient load.
They always have that mentor with
them.”
More than 100 graduating nurses
applied to undergo the program in
Muskoka, and Hughes estimates the
result will be about 12 new registered
nurses and registered practical nurses in
the Muskoka Algonquin Healthcare system.
Plewes sees an increased emphasis on
the team approach, as practiced by Family
Health Teams and in Community
Health Centres, as a solution to the
problem.
“People now across organizations are
getting together to manage the care of
someone who requires that team
approach. That’s helping to expand the
capacity of the individuals,” she says.
She also sees health care positions with
expanded capabilities as another solution.
“A registered practical nurse has education
and training and experience to do a
number of things that only a registered
nurse could do 10 or 15 years ago,” she
notes. “Nurse practitioners have the ability
and legislative support to do a number
of things that only family physicians
could do. There are new positions such
as physician’s assistants and nurse anesthetists
. . . just within the last couple of
years.”
Nurse practitioners, for instance, can
now diagnose illness, order some diagnostic
tests, order some mediations, refer
to specialists and admit or discharge
patients from hospitals, says Leanna
Lefebvre, a nurse practitioner and interim
administrative lead for a new nursepractitioner
clinic that will open in
Huntsville this fall.
The need for such a clinic was first
noticed in the emergency departments of
Muskoka’s hospitals, Lefebvre says.
“Twenty per cent of visits were from
people who didn’t have a health care
provider. We got together as a group of
nurse practitioners and looked at how we
could fill that gap.”
The clinic will be staffed by four nurse
practitioners as well as a registered nurse,
dietitian, social worker and pharmacist,
with consulting doctors partnering as
well. The philosophy is based on a nursing
model of care, with emphasis on illness
prevention and health promotion.
“We place a greater value on the therapeutic
relationship and ensure that
clients are full partners in their care,”
Lefebvre says.
The clinic is funded through a Ministry
initiative that began with one clinic
in 2007 in Sudbury. Since then, the decision
has been made to fund 25 more
throughout Ontario. Currently there are
about 1,900 nurse practitioners across
Ontario, most of whom started out as
registered nurses, but went back to university
for more training.
The North Simcoe-Muskoka LHIN is
beginning the formulation of a 10-year
implementation plan to integrate health
services available in hospitals, long-term
care facilities, community health centres,
community support services and mental
health agencies. It will include measures
to address the health care staff shortage,
says Plewes.
But it’s only in its beginning stages.
“We have a working group that’s come
together over the last months to put their
heads together to identify what an integrated
health human resources council
needs to look like to develop an effective
health human resources plan for the
region,” says Tammy McLennan, manager
of organizational talent and corporate
services for the LHIN. That council
will be formed over the summer, she says.
The LHIN will also conduct a detailed
survey of all North Simcoe and Muskoka
health service providers to create a
detailed inventory, examining not just
numbers of staff, but their interests and
skills to use as a workforce planning tool.
McLennan expects the survey to be complete
by sometime in the fall.
On June 20 it held a spring forum,
drawing 302 people from Muskoka and
North Simcoe to envision a more integrated
system of health care using new
models of health care with greater collaboration.
“We have 140 organizations, and 63
have nothing to do with the LHIN,” says
Plewes, noting that they include education
and justice groups as well as municipalities.
“Everybody saw the bonus of
having an integrated plan.”
Bill Innes, CEO of Muskoka’s Community
Care Access Centre, notes that
the centre’s increased use of personal support
workers in the home has lessened
the need for hospital care, thus alleviating
the pressure.
“I’m constantly looking for new workers,
but we have attained steady growth
over the last two years,” he says.
That’s keeping people out of hospital –
130 of them throughout the LHIN in
the past year, he says.
Meanwhile, he sees possible solutions,
both long-term and short-term, in new
technologies. With today’s high-tech
home monitors, he says, patients’ weight
and blood pressure can be tracked.
“So if you are watching blood pressure
and you see a drop, you can catch it
before that person falls and breaks their
hip, saving a hospital visit,” he enthuses.
But down the road, Innes envisions
more innovative solutions, such as the
elimination of cancer through gene therapy,
or robots providing care and even
surgery, more accurately than a human
hand. “
“The questions for me are, what is the
real need, how are we prepared to
respond to whatever that need is . . . and
where we choose to invest money as a
society,” he says.
That, and how to make use of limited
resources more efficiently, are the questions
that many people in Muskoka are
wrestling with, to address the health care
personnel shortage.
Photograph: Tim Lum
6 July 2011 www.whatsupmuskoka.com