The University of Ottawa Centre for Health Care Law, Policy and Ethics is working to open the dialogue on health care and practice change, which may well help us with system level change. One effort is to have open presentations that bridge and explain the dynamics between our laws, policy and practice, shared and recorded via virtual presentations.
I think the law is a much more dynamic and evolving guide to practice than most of us realize. When I say realize, I know we know, about the rule of law, but seldom do many of us on the frontlines, even directors and CEO’s have a sense we are able to enter this level of our systems of society and nudge or influence it. The centre aims to demonstrate to us how evolving court cases, research can be bridged to our regulatory colleges, policy guidelines that land at our organizations.
… Innovation in medicine offers tremendous hope. But it requires similar innovation in governance—in law, policy, and ethics—for society to fully realize the fruits and avoid the pitfalls. For example, how can we incorporate tomorrow’s AI technology into healthcare while avoiding accidental bias and discrimination? Can we apply insights from neuroscience to improve our criminal justice system for cases where mental illness is a factor? And as long as the list of tomorrow’s challenges is, there are as many gaps and shortfalls in what we already have: Many Canadians die waiting for organ transplants each year yet most people are not registered donors. Pathogens will inevitably out-evolve our current antibiotics and we aren’t developing new ones fast enough. The list goes on…
Please check out some of their presentations here: https://www.ottawahealthlaw.ca/pastevents
Bridging to on the ground care and organizational practice
I, as many of you struggle each day with how we communicate within and between organizational systems. These researchers take an important step to address this in the context of homelessness services in this article: Legal, geographic and organizational contexts that shape knowledge sharing in the hospital discharge process for people experiencing homelessness in Toronto, Canada Jesse I. R. Jenkinson Carol Strike Stephen W. Hwang Erica Di Ruggiero https://doi.org/10.1111/hsc.13206
… We find that within the legal context of health information protection, the concept of “circle of care” has created barriers to knowledge sharing between hospitals and shelters by excluding shelter workers from discharge planning. We note, however, that the degree to which hospital workers have navigated these barriers and brought shelter workers into the discharge process varies across hospitals. …
I’m going to pitch this to the Centre and the article researchers and see what might evolve as it would be useful to bring in more of a law interpretation and at least get a greater sense of the evolving law on circle of care. I say evolve because for sure law and care is in “process.” I also realize I may well be simply wishing or dreaming that this ongoing struggle of communications in health care can be effectively addressed, given the… mixed success track record.
