Improving Regional Access to Community Support Services
Doleweerd Consulting assisted a network of 25 community support service agencies in an improvement project focused on creating easy, coordinated access to over 150 services. This involved on-site fact gathering and creating digitized current state access process maps of the entire process. We facilitated workshops to create a shared understanding of the capability of current system to meet demand and provide client value. The solutions developed by Doleweerd Consulting enabled a simplified and unified intake approach that exceeding the expectations of patients and clinicians alike. In a few short months, over 2000 patients have been served, and efforts are underway to spread this improvement more provincially.
Understanding Northern Surgical Services
28 Northern Ontario first nations communities are serviced by Meno Ya Win Health Centre in Sioux Lookout. Many surgeries were being cancelled, clinicians were frustrated and patients were not getting care. Doleweerd Consulting was asked to make the entire surgical service access process clear and visual to the many organizations involved in delivering this service. We gathered the facts from all personnel directly involved in providing care, transportation, accommodation, and administrative approvals.
We created digitized current state process maps and video walkthroughs of the entire process. This enabled all parties to have a deep understanding of the current system. In doing this, the facts about causes of failure were readily agreed and ideas for improvement could be actioned.
Reducing Access Wait Times
Doleweerd Consulting has helped many community care organizations to make access to their services quicker and better. Two of these organizations initially possessed the longest provincial wait times from referral to assessment. Now, they are among the shortest in the province. Their 90th %ile waiting time was reduced from upwards of 30 to 5-9 days, without increasing base staffing. Results were realized within 3 months of recommendations. We did all this by mapping the current state, identifying change ideas and then working in concert with staff to directly implement solutions
Improving the Patient Experience – Provincial
The question of how to reduce ER backups, ALC days and the corresponding care mismatch has been an ongoing problem in the Ontario health care system. Often missing in this discussion is the impact on the patient experience when going from hospital-to-”home” (i.e. long term care home, retirement home, home with home care, etc…).
Doleweerd Consulting was recruited by the Change Foundation and Ontario Association of Community Care Access Centres to speak directly with patients and caregivers. Our goal was to understand what their perception of “value” is, and compare it with an in-depth process investigation of how service was actually delivered. South East Community Care Access Centre and Quinte Health Care- Trenton Memorial worked with Doleweerd Consulting to map all the steps and decisions that patients and their caregivers must take — and all the interactions and arrangements with different service providers- as they prepare to leave hospital for home – wherever ‘home’ may be.
Studying the processes in detail revealed that the move from hospital to home included 69 handling operations, 36 forms, four (often long-distance) family trips to the hospital and 15 delays.
This initiative helped form several new programs and policy shifts across the province. For example, patients are now encouraged to go ‘home first’ to make long term care decisions and phone and paper based communications were redesigned to provide a warmer experience. The final report was described by the Toronto Star as “required reading for every health administrator in the province”. Visit Change Foundation for more information.
