Abstract
Summary: Environmental scanning started as a practice to identify competitive intelligence in the private sector but is now commonly being used in health systems to inform decision and policy makers about gaps, practice variation and improvement opportunities with regards to services delivery. The aim of this workshop is to provide practical tips on best practices in implementing Environmental Scans in Integrated Care Systems to help support Learning Health Systems. There will be an opportunity to learn from real-world experiences on how to build on Environmental Scans to conduct other work including gap-analysis and strategic planning. Focused hands-on activities including real-world trade-offs and deliberative engagement of people with lived experience, patients, families & caregivers, and communities of interest will occur.
Background: Environmental scanning is increasingly used in health systems to support informed decision and policy making. Yet, little is known about how healthcare practitioners and researchers have adapted environmental scanning practices and use them for typical activities particularly the emerging context of integrated care systems
Aims and Objectives: This workshop will provide best practices for conducting Environmental Scans and introduce an implementation framework for using scans in other work including gap-analysis and strategic planning. Specific areas of interest are information acquisition, organization, and use and engagement with people with lived experience, patients, families & caregivers, and communities of interest in both the Environmental Scans and other materials.
Target Audience: The targeted audience for this workshop includes integrated care researchers and practitioners who are early in their journey of integration to build good practices in environmental scanning.
Format: This workshop will be 90 minutes wherein participants can work through decision-making processes while undertaking an Environmental Scan. Participants can work through their own example or those provided by the presenters. The facilitators will use a teach-back strategy to include best practices in Environmental Scans referencing real-world experience in newly formed integrated care models. There will be a specific section to discuss the deliberative engagement of people with lived experience, patients, families & caregivers, and communities of interest. This has been identified as a gap in how to translate environmental scans into other work within the Integrated Care Systems.
Key learnings: The participants will take away a structured, evidence-informed approach to Environmental Scans and its use for gap-analysis, needs assessment, and strategic planning. As well, strategies to advocate and include people with lived experience, patients, families & caregivers, and communities of interest in both the Environmental Scans and other materials.