On March 22, more than 90 participants from different roles and teams across VHA, including staff, service providers, and client partners gathered at St. James Cathedral Event Centre, for Design Day.

At this fun and informative day-long event, participants learned about interprofessional care, explored what VHA can do to enhance leadership and interprofessional competency for leaders, and offered important feedback to help kick start the co-design of a “One Team” interprofessional model at VHA.

The One Team Initiative

Led by members of VHA’s Integrated Client & Community Care, Quality, Best Practice & Education, and Research & Innovation departments, the One Team initiative is a multi-phase project that will develop and implement a new and improved interprofessional care model for VHA.

Although VHA already embraces an interprofessional approach to care, the initiative aims to strengthen and create foundational components such as refreshed clinical leadership competencies that will result in better client outcomes and enhanced client and employee experiences.

Co-designed with input from staff, service providers, and client partners, the initiative will develop and implement a new interprofessional framework, create a coordination model for interprofessional care delivery, and provide supervisors and clinical leads with education and new tools that will reinforce integrated care as a core element of clinical roles’ scope.

“We wanted to hear from our team members, clients and families, and point of care partners,” said David Fry, Vice President of Integrated Client & Community Care at VHA.

“What does interprofessional care mean to them and how can we do a better job of improving the delivery of interprofessional care here at VHA?”

What is interprofessional care?

Interprofessional care is a team-based clinical practice model where an organization’s diverse range of healthcare professionals and their client partners work collaboratively to better meet their clients’ health needs. The model is truly holistic in its vision and approach and brings healthcare providers even closer to fully realizing true person-centred care.

In an interprofessional model, over the course of one week a VHA client might receive care from a variety of point-of-care providers from both VHA and other providers. Clients might have visits from a social worker, a personal support worker, a physiotherapist, a nurse, and a pharmacist all in a matter of days. Under a fully realized interprofessional care model, these service providers, including their coordinators and supervisors, are approaching the client as a team. Whenever possible, they are sharing care plans, information, documentation, and coordinating scheduling. This is the vision behind VHA’s One Team initiative.

Brainstorming The Future

Though it was a dreary and cold day outside, inside the packed venue the room was buzzing with excitement and filled with warm energy. The balanced mix of point-of-care and office staff from all levels of the organization at each table, together with client partners, enabled meaningful conversations, team building, and learning. Everyone had a voice, and every voice mattered.

The event’s engaging seminar format combined presentations with interactive polling activities in real-time and group brainstorming breakout sessions that were later shared in presentations to the room.

“Having teams get together like this was an opportunity for everyone to learn with each other, from each other, and about each other,” said Sandra Li-James, Vice President of Quality, Best Practice, Education and Chief Nursing Executive at VHA.

“It was an opportunity to really share ideas and contribute to the development of what we hope One Team will look like at VHA.”

Design Day has brought us one step closer to realizing the One Team vision. It is an example of what can be accomplished when everyone gets together to exchange ideas and experiences through interprofessional collaboration.

Just as the feedback and lessons learned at Design Day will help lay the foundation of the One Team Initiative, so too will the contagious enthusiasm and sense of unified purpose expressed by all at the event help drive this vision forward.

Check out the recap video below to see and hear what participants had to say about Design Day or  view the video on YouTube.