Our annual Quality Awards program celebrates projects and individuals in BC who are improving health care quality. One of the highlights is checking in with past years’ winners to hear about how they used their sponsorships to support and disseminate learning from their projects or to support ongoing learning and development. Here’s what the 2019 Quality Award winners shared with us!
If these winners’ stories remind you of a team or individual who’s doing inspiring health care improvement work in BC, why not nominate them for a Quality Award? We will soon be accepting nominations for the 2021 Quality Awards. Subscribe to our newsletter to stay up to date!
The Pediatric Nephrology Clinical Pathway Development Team at BC Children’s Hospital won the Getting Better award. They are continuing their work to lessen clinical practice variation to foster better outcomes in children with kidney disease in BC. They use patient and family input, local context, networking and teaching to create a clinical pathway for best practice. The sponsorship was used to support two students to attend an international conference in California, where they presented evidence that is helping to build a new clinical pathway for children born with congenital anomalies of their kidneys.
The UBC Pharmacists Clinic at the UBC Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences was awarded the Living with Illness award. They lead person-centred work to identify problems and solutions to drug therapies, and how individuals can get optimal results from their medication. The $2,500 sponsorship was used to support clinic team members travelling to the Canadian Pharmacists Conference in June 2019, where they shared their learnings and contributed to discussions on how pharmacist resources can best meet the complex needs of Canadians living with medical conditions.
Vancouver Coastal Health’s Integrating a Palliative Approach by Having Conversations Early (iPACE) project won the Coping with End of Life award. The project aims to improve end-of-life care by empowering point-of-care staff to have conversations with patients about their goals for care, as early in their illnesses as possible. The iPACE team provides on-site education for staff who have not traditionally been trained in palliative care. They used their $2,500 sponsorship to support their attendance at Quality Forum 2019.
The Doug Cochrane Leadership in Quality award went to Bob Bluman at the UBC Faculty of Medicine for his work with Continuing Professional Development (CPD) programs in BC. For over 35 years, Bob has designed and developed numerous CPD programs to foster optimal practice and improve quality of health care. The sponsorship money was contributed for use by the entire UBC CPD staff, with the suggestion by Bob to use the funds to support patient involvement in CPD. The funds have yet to be spent but we are looking forward to hearing more!
Chad Dickie won the Leadership in Advancing the Patient Voice award for numerous contributions to improving the health care system for patients and their families at the national, provincial and regional levels. His contributions include patient-oriented research, community-based research focused on HIV as well as mental health and substance use in the LGTBQ2S community. He used his sponsorship to support attendance at conferences, steering committee meetings, quality improvement education, and a sponsorship for a family member from northern BC to attend Quality Forum 2019. A highlight for him was a mini-family reunion! Chad hopes his recognition will encourage more participation from diverse populations.
Derek Smith was awarded the Everyday Champion award for ipcGUARD™: a revolutionary new “low impact” system for performing maintenance in hospitals and clinics that improves patient experience, reduces costs and exceeds standards for infectious disease control. The ipcGUARD™ has moved from its beta stage and been approved by Island Health and the Provincial Health Service Authority. The sponsorship was used in the development of a prototype and to help make ipcGUARD™ available to all.
