Article originally posted here.

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Award Date: 2018 - as a part of CABHI’s Industry Innovation Partnership Program (I2P2)

Project Lead(s): Angus Ho, Rose Zegas, Michelle Cleland

Project Title: Empowering Modern Healthcare Teams

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What is the issue?

Individuals with dementia and their caregivers need multiple resources and supports to navigate the healthcare system successfully. Challenges in communication between family members and healthcare professionals can negatively affect a patient’s journey.

What did we do?

Careteam is a care coordination and navigation platform that brings multidisciplinary experts together to care for patients with complex needs and create a robust support network for patients and family members. The Mackenzie Health Geriatric Outreach Team worked with Careteam Technologies to modify the platform and made it easier for family members to access clinicians’ assessments of their loved ones. Our research team designed communication tools and educational materials for patients, family members, and healthcare providers. We integrated the platform with Epic’s electronic health records (EHR) system. We also assessed its satisfaction among users and its ability to increase clinician productivity, reduce patients’ missed appointments, and provide clearer instructions to patients and caregivers.

What did we find?

Some clinicians were initially reluctant to invest time to use the platform. However, they realized that it improved communication with patients and caregivers after the completion of geriatric assessments. The COVID-19 pandemic put our project on hold for several months. After it resumed recently, some of the most hesitant clinicians reported missing its benefits. Overall, the platform increased user satisfaction by 60 per cent and increased clinician productivity by 30 per cent.

Key findings:

• The Careteam platform allowed instant communication between healthcare providers, personal support teams, and decision-makers.
• The technology allowed us to create tailored care plans for patients across different health teams and settings, reducing redundancies in the healthcare system.
• The availability of funding is critical for long-term scale-up, EHR integration, and training