The Best Health for Infants, Children and Youth in BC
A NETWORK OF CARE
Together we can give every child what they deserve— the promise of a healthy future.
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BRITISH COLUMBIA’S CHILD POPULATION BY REGION 2
Northern
75,604 children
Vancouver Coastal
Fraser
Vancouver Island
Interior
217,702 children 147,577 children
377,545 children 152,000 children
FACT No.1
970,428
A UNIQUE CHALLENGE
CHILDREN LIVE IN BRITISH COLUMBIA. FACT No.2
67%
OF PATIENTS SEEN AT BC CHILDREN’S HOSPITAL COME FROM AREAS OUTSIDE THE CITY OF VANCOUVER. FACT No.3
HEALTH IN CHILDHOOD CAN HAVE A LASTING IMPACT ON AN INDIVIDUAL, AFFECTING SCHOOL READINESS AND THEIR ABILITY TO SUCCEED AS ADULTS.
The province of British Columbia is home to nearly one million children and is bigger than the states of Washington, Oregon and California combined. This poses a unique challenge – that of delivering a consistent standard of care to a far-flung population. BC Children’s Hospital is the province’s only full-service, pediatric acute care hospital and is responsible for providing care to a population of children larger than that served by any other single hospital in Canada. Although BC Children’s Hospital is responsible for caring for all children who are seriously ill or injured regardless of their location in the province, the reality is that children who live closer to the hospital have easier access to the highest level of pediatric care.
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KEIRA CAILLET
Seeing Keira Caillet now it’s hard to believe the energetic five-year-old’s life once hung in the balance. Born with her aorta and pulmonary artery in reversed positions, Keira received lifesaving heart surgery at BC Children’s Hospital at two weeks old. For the first four years of Keira’s life, she and her family made many trips to the hospital from Victoria to get specialized care.
In October 2010, doctors at BC Children’s gave Keira the green light to receive all of her follow-up care from Dr. Brian Sinclair, a pediatric cardiologist on Vancouver Island who is part of the BC Children’s team and has been following Keira’s care from day one.
“No more 6 am ferry rides and two-day trips to Vancouver,” says Keira’s mother, Cherie. “While Keira is a resilient little girl the travel did make for a long day. Now we just hop in the car and we’re there in five minutes.” 4
WHAT IS CHILD HEALTH BC?
Child Health BC was established in 2005 by BC Children’s Hospital to improve access to child and youth health services for all of BC’s communities, to enable children to see specialists in or close to their home communities, to support the development and promotion of standards of care in BC, and to support the work of regional hospitals and health-care professionals as they treat children and adolescents. The initiative is a network of the province’s five regional health authorities, the Provincial Health Services Authority, health professionals and care facilities – including BC Children’s Hospital – dedicated to excellence in the care of infants, children and youth in British Columbia. Child Health BC works to ensure children in BC have access to a consistent and first-rate standard of health care, wherever they live.
Leadership
Dr. Maureen O’Donnell is the executive director of Child Health BC. Formerly the senior medical director at Sunny Hill Health Centre for Children, Dr. O’Donnell joined Child Health BC in October 2010 and has since worked with Child Health BC’s steering committee, various government ministries and regional partners to review and refine the program’s overall strategic plan. Under Dr. O’Donnell’s leadership, Child Health BC is dedicated to continuing to improve the delivery of pediatric health care to meet its ultimate objective: to achieve the best health for infants, children and youth in BC.
A once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to create a legacy for BC’s children
Child Health BC will benefit from $50 million of the $200 million being raised during BC Children’s Hospital Foundation’s Campaign for BC Children. The balance of the funds raised will support the construction of a new BC Children’s Hospital in Vancouver and the relocation of child development and rehabilitation services from Sunny Hill Health Centre for Children to the hospital site. The Overwaitea Food Group is Child Health BC’s lead benefactor, with a pledge of $20 million to the program.
Dr. Maureen O’Donnell
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IMPROVING CARE FOR ALL OF BC’S CHILDREN
Among the goals of Child Health BC are improved access to BC Children’s specialists, reduced travel for children requiring treatment, standardized care for children throughout BC, and improved pediatric services and resources in the various regions of the province. Together with partners, including the province’s health authorities, we have an opportunity to safeguard the health of BC’s children and give them a brighter and healthier future for generations to come.
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In particular, Child Health BC aims to improve care by: Strengthening all levels of pediatric health services – from the most basic to the most complex care. Building an integrated and accessible health-care system. Fostering collaborations and partnerships among government ministries and health authorities to establish provincial guidelines and share best practices. Creating provincial standards that will guide the delivery of pediatric care for children with specific conditions and illnesses, such as childhood diabetes. Organizing workshops to bring stakeholders together and to share knowledge and educate regional caregivers on best practices in caring for children and youth. Growing subspecialty pediatric clinics that have already been established with support from Child Health BC, and possibly constructing new ones as needs arise.
Supporting visits from BC Children’s Hospital’s doctors and nurses to communities across BC. Developing special projects such as injury prevention and healthy weights initiatives to improve safety and well-being. Promoting health and healthy habits from an early age so BC’s children are given a better chance of becoming healthy adults. Exploring innovative, technological solutions to enable children, families and regional caregivers to consult with specialists at BC Children’s Hospital without making a trip to Vancouver. Supporting the information needs of medical providers and the healthcare system to ensure the best and most seamless care for children.
J O N AT H A N D E A N
Four-year-old Jonathan Dean is used to overcoming challenges. Because of a genetic condition called CHARGE syndrome he is deaf and blind, and requires specialized care in speech therapy, audiology, respirology and ophthalmology, among others. Travelling from their home in Nanaimo to BC Children’s in Vancouver was part of a normal routine for Jonathan’s family. That is, before the pediatric clinic at Nanaimo Regional General Hospital opened in April 2009. Although the preschooler still goes to BC Children’s at least once a year for checkups, most of his care is now managed by caregivers at the Nanaimo facility.
“Being able to go to Nanaimo has made such a difference,” says Grace, Jonathan’s mom. “It’s helped our home life. I don’t have to take a full day or two from work. I can’t even put into words how much it’s helped us.”
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CHILD HEALTH BC VISION AND MISSION
Through Child Health BC, Children’s Hospital is dedicated to making access to care easier for families across the province. By supporting Child Health BC you are helping to: Create a single vision and mission for children’s health
Child Health BC is working with its partners from around BC to ensure plans and activities related to the provision of pediatric care are aligned. Child Health BC’s role is to provide vision and leadership and to identify areas where actions are needed, moving these actions forward and using them to leverage additional health benefits for BC’s children.
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Build a strong foundation of service that keeps children healthy
Keeping children healthy starts before they actually need subspecialty care for an illness or injury. In BC, injury is the leading cause of death for children beyond the newborn period and childhood obesity is increasingly threatening the health of our children and youth. If child-health trends like these continue, today’s children could become the first generation not to outlive their parents. Both accidental childhood deaths and illnesses resulting from an unhealthy lifestyle are preventable. With this understanding, Child Health BC has identified injury prevention and “healthy weights” as areas that need dedicated work. For example, SCOPE – which stands for Sustainable Obesity Prevention through Community Engagement – is a Child Health BC obesity prevention pilot program that has been successfully implemented in Abbotsford and Prince George. By promoting the benefits of healthy eating and an active lifestyle, SCOPE is playing a role in establishing healthy habits early, giving children a better chance of maintaining these habits into their adult years.
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Support a wide range of health services for children
The health services a child can receive come from four different “tiers”: 1. Basic primary care provided by general practitioners; 2. Pediatricians, nurse practitioners, and physiotherapists; 3. Regional hospitals with multidisciplinary teams; 4. Provincial, “one-of-a-kind” services provided at BC Children’s Hospital. Fortunately, not all children who become ill have a serious illness.Yet all children still deserve access to high-quality, appropriate health care from their family doctors and nurse practitioners around BC. Child Health BC is dedicated to supporting the province’s health professionals by bringing all
partners who provide primary care for children together and working to resolve the challenges they face in caring for children and youth in their communities. The resulting “net” of service aims to prevent illnesses while ensuring children get the best medical care possible when needed, whether in their family doctor’s office, in consultation with child-health specialists or by referral to BC Children’s Hospital. By enhancing coordination among service providers in each level, we can ensure BC’s children receive the best care possible – from those who have the flu to kids who are living with cancer. The goal is to produce a province-wide blueprint for a true network of care, building an integrated and accessible health system for all children.
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ELLIOTT REID
Elliott Reid has been airlifted to BC Children’s Hospital twice from his hometown of Tumbler Ridge in northern BC. The 14-year-old suffered heart damage caused by a strep infection. He has undergone two surgeries to treat this life-threatening condition and, following one surgery, spent several days in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit with his chest open while doctors monitored him for infection. Thanks to Child Health BC, Elliott is able to receive his follow-up care from a pediatric heart specialist at a clinic in Prince George, equipped with funding from Child Health BC. The trips to Prince George are much easier and far less stressful for the Reids than the 18-hour drive to BC Children’s Hospital in Vancouver.
“If one person makes a donation to this because of Elliott, I feel like we’ve really helped to do something good,” says Elliott’s mom, Nicole.
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SPECIALTY CARE WHERE NEEDED
With an expected increase in the number of children living with complex and chronic conditions, children in all corners of BC will require more comprehensive care, more often. Child Health BC is expanding to areas of the province that would otherwise not have a high level of specialized pediatric services available to families in need. Working with hospital partners and the regional health authorities, Child Health BC is enhancing the availability of subspecialty care for kids in communities across BC.
Innovation and creativity
Child Health BC explores new ways to deliver specialty and subspecialty services more effectively and efficiently, such as through advanced technology like videoconferencing and Telehealth. These technological solutions allow children, families and regional caregivers to connect and consult with specialists at BC Children’s while staying in their home communities.
Interprofessional workshops
Workshops organized by Child Health BC bring policy makers and regional caregivers together to share knowledge of best practices in caring for children. These workshops create a forum to develop provincial standards of care that can be adopted and used throughout the province, ensuring the highest level of care for all children. Regional partnership clinics
Although some children will always need to visit BC Children’s Hospital, Child Health BC supports the development of regional partnership clinics to provide care for children closer to home whenever possible. Some of the regional clinics make use of existing space while others use spaces that Child Health BC has helped to create. Our goal is to develop the capacity of multidisciplinary caregivers so they can provide subspecialty and specialty care at a high, provincial standard to children across BC, giving children easier and more timely access to care while significantly reducing the number of visits to BC Children’s Hospital.
Provincial standards of care
Child Health BC is working collaboratively with its network of partners to create provincial standards for use in every health authority and community. Standards are developed based on the best possible evidence in literature and will be customized for BC’s children based on their health needs, our culture and our vast geography. These standards will be implemented across the province.
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CHILD HEALTH BC ACTIVITY
Since 2007 Child Health BC has successfully helped to expand or establish pediatric clinics in five BC communities. Specialists from Children’s and regional hospitals are now seeing children in these clinics, keeping families closer to home. Workshops and training sessions supported by Child Health BC are also helping to build pediatric care capacity across the province by giving local caregivers additional skills and knowledge in pediatric medicine. Best practice workshops
By late 2011, over 920 health professionals had attended 18 workshops held in locations across the province. These workshops, which deal with topics ranging from childhood diabetes and palliative care, to attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder and cystic fibrosis, bring caregivers and policy makers together to discuss and share best practices. They also help establish valuable relationships, allowing health-care workers with expertise in various areas to consult with each other, thus elevating the level of care children receive throughout the province. So far, workshops organized by Child Health BC have led to the creation of provincial standards of care for cerebral palsy, cystic fibrosis and childhood diabetes.
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Travelling clinics
Many Children’s Hospital doctors and caregivers travel to communities across BC to provide specialized care. These travelling clinics allow children to access the services they need without making a trip to BC Children’s Hospital in Vancouver. Clinics are held in communities including Trail, Terrace, Kelowna, Prince George,Victoria and Nanaimo, among others. Child Health BC supports subspecialty clinics in neurology, endocrinology, respirology, rheumatology and gastroenterology, with doctors visiting two to six times a year. Regional partnership clinics
Funding from Child Health BC has allowed for the construction or upgrading of specialized pediatric facilities throughout the province. Thousands of children and families from Richmond,Vernon, Prince Rupert, Nanaimo, Prince George and surrounding communities have been served at clinics in these cities since 2007.
LOCATIONS OF TRAVELLING AND REGIONAL PARTNERSHIP CLINICS SUPPORTED BY CHILD HEALTH BC
PRINCE RUPERT
TERRACE
PRINCE GEORGE
VERNON KELOWNA
NANAIMO RICHMOND ABBOTSFORD SURREY
TRAIL
VICTORIA
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DR. SHAZHAN AMED
Dr. Shazhan Amed is an endocrinologist at BC Children’s Hospital. She has been leading a pediatric diabetes program supported by Child Health BC to ensure provincial standards are developed to benefit all children with diabetes in BC. Through the program, specialists at BC Children’s Hospital are linked with community-based diabetes centres in each of the province’s health authorities, providing valuable opportunities for learning, training and capacity building. By unifying childhood diabetes care into a comprehensive provincial model, families can have access to high-quality care and educational resources on childhood diabetes, no matter where they live in BC.
“Child Health BC has enabled health professionals from across BC to work collaboratively, build capacity and participate in continuing education related to pediatric diabetes. Its leadership and commitment to provincial standards has inspired a provincial model of pediatric diabetes care where children and their families can access high-quality pediatric diabetes care as close to home as possible.”
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“We’re grateful to our customers, supplier partners, and especially to our team members for their ongoing support and commitment to helping us reach our $20-million goal. Through this support, we’re proud to be playing a small role in helping deliver the best possible care to kids, closer to their hometowns.” Steve van der Leest President, Overwaitea Food Group
In 2007, the Overwaitea Food Group became lead benefactor to the Campaign for BC Children with a pledge of $20 million to support Child Health BC. The Overwaitea Food Group and its thousands of team members have supported BC Children’s Hospital in numerous ways for more than 20 years. Through Child Health BC, the Overwaitea Food Group is helping to give children in British Columbia something that every child deserves – the gift of good health.
From left: Overwaitea Food Group store manager Ryan Dennis with president Steve van der Leest and team member Vanessa Lymberotoulos.
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“Child Health BC’s work evaluating local and regional care has allowed us to make specific, effective investments to support specialty services for children.”
DR. BRIAN SINCLAIR
Being the only pediatric cardiologist based on Vancouver Island means life can be very busy. So it goes for Dr. Brian Sinclair, who sees children both at his practice in Victoria and in the pediatric ambulatory care clinic at Nanaimo Regional General Hospital, constructed with Child Health BC funding. He receives over 2,000 visits from patients each year, allowing hundreds of families on the island to receive care closer to home. Dr. Sinclair travels to Children’s Hospital once a month and regularly connects with the hospital’s surgical planning team via videoconferencing. He refers patients requiring highly complex care, like cardiac surgery, to BC Children’s Hospital. As the department head and pediatric medical program director for the Vancouver Island Health Authority he sits on the steering committee of Child Health BC, evaluating issues such as province-wide access to specialty care.
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BC Children’s Hospital Foundation 938 West 28th Avenue, Vancouver BC V5Z 4H4 Tel: 604 875 2444
Toll Free: 1 888 663 3033
Fax: 604 875 2596
www.bcchf.ca