Reflections on the Ontario Health Teams (OHT) Provincial Learning and Improvement Collaborative Forum

Rapid-Improvement Support and Exchange (RISE) recently co-hosted a two-day event with the Ontario Ministry of Health for all approved and full-application Ontario Health Teams (OHTs). RISE heard from OHT representatives, small-group facilitators and resource people that it was a tremendous opportunity to network amongst teams and establish connections among those with similar year 1 priority populations and with expertise in caring for these populations. The RISE team also heard about many commonalities across OHTs and about variability in their understanding of population-health management approaches and readiness to begin implementation.

Based on feedback from teams, facilitators and resource people about how best to support teams, RISE has committed to several key next steps, including to:

  1. lead, enable or support communities of practice (OHT and RISE) and ‘learning and improvement’ collaboratives (e.g., focused on moving the needle on quadruple-aim metrics for year 1 priority populations)
  2. support as seamless an experience as possible with the coaching and other ‘on-the-ground’ supports becoming available through the OHT Central Program of Supports
  3. co-convene more collaborative events, which will include an upcoming citizen panel about engaging patients, families and caregivers in OHTs, and an upcoming stakeholder dialogue about support hospital-to-home transitions
  4. host more webinars, covering key insights from both days of the OHT Forum and other priority topic areas
  5. prepare or update RISE briefs about population-health management in general and population segmentation in particular, four commonly selected year 1 priority populations, key building block-related domains (e.g., data-analytics platforms), and key patient partner, health-system partner and research partner resources (e.g., contributors to the OHT Central Program of Supports)
  6. prepare rapid syntheses on emerging issues (e.g., lessons learned from past integrated-care initiatives in Ontario)
  7. continue to update the website (www.OHTrise.org | www.ESOrise.org) and disseminate the monthly RISE Update e-newsletter

Materials from day 2 are available here (with updated versions and French translations of these updated versions to be available shortly). If you have other ideas about what RISE or the broader OHT Central Program of Supports should prioritize in the coming months, please let us know by sending an email to rise@mcmaster.ca.