Posted on Sep 21, 2016
The SSC’s mandate is to facilitate collaboration with Doctors of BC, the BC government and BC’s Health Authorities on the delivery of specialist-physician services to British Columbians and supports the improvement of the specialist care system. But the big question is “how”?
The “how” has evolved since SSC first began more than 10 years ago. Recently, the SSC established its strategic work plan for over the next three years focusing on three broad areas for development: 1) Engage physicians, 2) Support physicians and 3) Improve the system
Understanding your work and the health care environment are key to all of these development areas. Through consultations with a number of physicians and stakeholders, we have developed initiatives and supports for each.
Engage physicians
Although everything SSC does involves engaging specialists, SSC has two initiatives that requires specialist engagement to really work. One is Facility-based Physician Engagement, which funds and supports the engagement of facility-based physicians and health authorities. Physicians are able to identify and prioritize issues through effective lines of communication with physicians and health authority leadership. The second is the Regional Quality Improvement, which funds and supports physician participation in regional and local venues to learn, effectively participate, coordinate, and act on quality improvement opportunities to improve patient care.
Support physicians
SSC supports physicians through our Leadership and QI Training, improving service delivery with SSC fees and providing local and regional staff resources to support physicians with facility engagement and quality improvement activities.
Improve the system
There are over 40 physician-led Quality and Innovation projects currently being funded by SSC. The projects run the gamut from surgical improvements, telemedicine, elder care and access to psychiatric services, among others. Some projects like Enhanced Recovery have expanded to a provincial reach. In addition, the SSC’s Health System Redesign Fund is available for specialists to participate in various health system redesign initiatives led by health authorities.
So much of this work integrates with other initiatives taking place through collaboration. It’s important to know what resources and supports are available through the SSC and when. Within the next month or two, the SSC website will be redesigned to help anyone interested, more easily find information. Our goal is to create a website that can be a “source of truth” for all SSC-related matters.
