Abstract
Background: To share strengths and build capabilities for driving excellence in healthcare, Healthcare Excellence Canada (HEC) hosted a workshop which for the first time, brought together participants of two HEC programs - Strengthening Primary Care (SPC) and Cultural Safety Design Collaborative (CSDC).
Approach: This workshop brought together coaches and participating team members from across Canada to. Provide an opportunity for relationship building and learning among HEC program teams coaches to improve safe and high-quality healthcare. Share strengths and build capabilities in areas foundational for driving excellence in healthcare, including: - meaningful partnership with people with lived experience including First Nations, Inuit and Mtis, patients, caregivers and communities - addressing racism in the health system and work towards providing culturally safe care; and, - advancing equity-oriented approaches. Build quality improvement capacity to utilize policy and evaluation approaches to demonstrate meaningful impact and support long term improvement.Quality and safety are the foundation of our work - with and for - the people who receive care and those who deliver it. The workshop was a means to live our own excellence- taking a more integrated view that spans the health system.Transforming people through the experience of coming together was a core principle. Under the guidance of HEC Truth Reconciliation Coach, experiential learning was reflected in the purposeful planning of the event from the location to the seating arrangements.Transformation requires individuals to be open to thinking differently. To create an environment where the diversity of perspectives could be valued and respected, we were encouraged by local First Nations partners to open the day in ceremony. Ceremony has a way of grounding us in human connections to others and to the world around us, creating time and space for reflection and engaging a persons heart and mind.The workshop was hosted at the Canadian Museum for Human Rights, the first museum solely dedicated to the evaluation, celebration and future of human rights. The room was open to other parts of the museum and provided participants with access to outdoor space where a sacred fire burned as part of the ceremony.The pipe ceremony was led by local First Nations Elders and Knowledge Keepers and at the end each participant was invited to make their own tobacco tie and bring it to the sacred fire. The groups moved into fulsome introductions modeled by a facilitator. Coaches and participants were assigned to tables strategically to foster new relationships and bring differing perspectives to conversations throughout the day.
Results:87% of respondents rated the workshop as very good/excellent; 89% said the workshop helped to develop and deepen relationships with others"The HEC workshop emphasis on evaluation and relationship building was very helpful to our initiative. We have a lot of expertise with the relationship-based approach but realized through our learnings at the HEC workshop that we have a lot of room to grow in the evaluation area. Specifically, the presentations on a culturally safe approach to evaluation were very helpful and made us realize our approach to evaluation for our Indigenous communities was wrong. We realized through the presentations that we were approaching it from an evaluation of instead of an evaluation with approach. Dave Harris (Northern Interior Rural Development, BC)
Implications: The workshop was a collaborative exercise in human level transformation, leveraging the expertise of coaches and guest speakers across two programs delivering meaningful health system change. Through participant surveys and follow-up, we learned about the continued impact of expanded learning and new and deepened relationships.