Optimizing the Early Years

The BC Women’s Hospital Allergy Clinic Team is Canada’s first dedicated centre for testing and removing penicillin allergies in pregnant individuals, significantly improving outcomes for both patients and newborns. Since its inception, the clinic has helped 800 patients, reducing unnecessary medical interventions and complications related to postpartum infections and caesarean wounds. The initiative’s success has established penicillin allergy delabelling as a standard of care, leading to cost savings for the system and inspiring similar programs across Canada.

The British Columbia Autism Assessment Network launched a new strategy aimed at achieving earlier diagnoses of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). The Streamlined Assessment Program is now leading to better quality care for affected children in BC by addressing a growing need for timelier assessments, particularly among minimally verbal children aged less than 43 months, who demonstrate clear signs of ASD symptoms.

Roots to Read is a program that educates, equips and empowers families in Nanaimo with information and tools to promote literacy and language development in their child, beginning at birth – because the way families interact with their children from the moment they are born matters immensely to how they develop language and interact socially.

Through the work of researchers and key stakeholders, Child Health BC recognized concern regarding children’s decreasing physical activity levels, decreasing fruit and vegetable intake and increasing screen time. So it launched Appetite to Play alongside provincial partners Sport for Life, YMCA of Greater Vancouver, Childhood Obesity Foundation and the Ministry of Health to support early…