Advance care planning (ACP) is a process that supports patients to reflect on their personal values and preferences towards care, and share these preferences with their healthcare team. ACP supports patient- and family-centered care, ensuring the care a patient receives aligns with their goals and preferences. Recent research conducted at BC Cancer aimed to learn how to better support oncology nurses in conducting ACP across the cancer journey. Study findings provide important insight into (1) local barriers and facilitators for oncology nurses to conduct ACP and (2) changes needed to support nursing-led ACP at BC Cancer.
To translate these findings into clinical practice, we will assemble direct care nurses, nursing leaders, patient and family partners, and relevant knowledge users to inform a nursing practice change that enhances oncology nurses’ ability to conduct ACP. Our approach will involve key activities, including the establishment of a provincial ACP working group to oversee all activities, engagement sessions with direct care nurses to identify barriers and facilitators to the proposed practice change, and targeted implementation strategies such as educational sessions to promote awareness and build ACP proficiency.
The number of adults over the age of 65 is expected to double in the next 20 years. Maintaining both cognitive function (i.e., thinking abilities) and mobility (i.e., the ability to move) are vital to functional independence and quality of life. Exercise can improve cognitive function and mobility in older adults.
However, many older adults are inactive. Key barriers to exercise include: 1) lack of motivation; 2) medical conditions, such as arthritis; and 3) lack of knowledge on how to exercise safely and effectively. To address these barriers, we will: i) disseminate the latest evidence on the benefits of exercise for cognitive function and mobility via a public forum; ii) deliver interactive workshops during which older adults (and caregivers) will learn how to exercise safely, how to individualize exercises, how to progress exercises, how to use popular wearables (e.g., Fitbit), and strategies to achieve a balanced 24-hour activity cycle for overall health; and iii) develop online resources capturing the content of the interactive workshops.
The intent of the public forum, workshops, and online resources is to motivate and enable older adults to uptake exercise, and thereby contribute to the global agenda of healthy aging.
The 2021 heat dome in BC resulted in 619 heat-related deaths and as well as a range of suffering from slight discomfort to emergency room visits. The way the heat dome impacted people was not uniform. Some people experienced significant discomfort while others ended up hospitalized. Despite this lack of uniformity in experience, many governments and agencies responded with one size fits all solutions. To better understand the diversity of experience related to extreme heat, we have embarked on a robust research project collecting survey responses and sharing circle engagement from hundreds of people across the Capital Regional District in BC. This has helped us highlight stories of suffering and recommendations for responses. To ensure this research drives appropriate equity-informed policy creation and government action, we are entering the next step of our project by amplifying the voices and stories we have heard through a podcast. It is our aim that this podcast series will highlight the voices of those most impacted by extreme heat and allow them to speak directly to governments and other organizations that will take their recommendations forward in order to prepare for the next extreme heat event.
Our recent research in BC shows that there is lack of grief support services available for people experiencing homelessness after they lose someone they care about. One common source of grief support for people experiencing homelessness are frontline workers. Yet, recent research found that frontline workers are commonly not provided grief support training, and their own work-related grief after a client dies is largely unsupported. In our survey of frontline workers in BC, almost all expressed a desire to increase their knowledge of grief.
Our project aims to improve grief knowledge and support skills for frontline workers who serve people experiencing homelessness. The project includes two steps: 1) Co-creating and testing an online grief education module and resources with a working group of community-based organizations, subject matter experts, and public partners; 2) Launching the developed module and resources through a symposium and exploring with experts in the field ways to make them more accessible for frontline workers. The ultimate goal of the project is to enhance the grief literacy for frontline workers and improve their abilities to provide better grief support to their clients who are experiencing homelessness.
The COVID-19 pandemic lockdown has further exacerbated unhealthy lifestyle behaviors, increasing the risk of childhood obesity, particularly among certain minority population groups. Our team is working with the Childhood Obesity Foundation (a knowledge user) to design, evaluate and scale up a “made in B.C.” 10-week healthy lifestyle program called Generation Health for families with children aged 8-12 years who want to be on a healthier lifestyle path. However, a key challenge facing program dissemination is accommodating those at-risk families who have trouble understanding English. This has significantly influenced program uptake and effectiveness for those families. To address this, the aim of this project is to 1) leverage artificial language translation tools to make our virtual program accessible in the three most spoken non-English languages (Punjabi, Chinese, Spanish ) in Canada; 2) collaborate with our knowledge user to disseminate the program across B.C. We have amassed a multi-disciplinary team with extensive experience in delivering and disseminating virtual family-based interventions. This project has the potential to be incredibly impactful to families for whom English is a barrier.
Imagine you are an older adult who sometimes feels down or anxious, and you would like someone to talk to who understands what you are going through. However, you may not have many people in your life who can relate to your experiences, or you may not feel comfortable discussing your mental health with them.
That’s where our online platform comes in. This project will create a platform where older adults can connect with other older adults who are going through similar challenges. Providing a safe and supportive space where you can talk about your mental health, the platform will connect older adults who have lived experience of mental health challenges and who may better understand what you’re going through. Using this platform, you will be able to communicate with them in a variety of ways, such as through private messaging or in virtual support groups.
Overall, the goal of the project is to provide a convenient and accessible way for older adults to access mental health support, which can be particularly important for those who may have limited mobility or who live in rural areas where mental health services are not readily available.
Ischemic brain injury refers to brain injuries that occur from a lack of blood flow and oxygen delivery to the brain. Current clinical management strategies and therapeutics have shown little effect on patient outcomes. As such, urgent research is ongoing with promising breakthroughs in this field by a multidisciplinary group of researchers in British Columbia. Given the urgency of disseminating research findings, this project will involve knowledge translation activities that target three main groups of knowledge users: a) healthcare providers in rural and remote settings in BC; b) healthcare professional trainees; and c) patients, caregivers and the general public. By undertaking targeted knowledge translation activities to each of these groups, the implementation of research findings will be equitable (for all British Columbians including those from rural settings), long-lasting (healthcare professional trainees will be equipped up-to-date knowledge) and patient-centered (disseminating the findings directly to patients and the public).
This project builds on two other projects about how healthcare providers can include person-centred assessment tools (such as quality of life) into practice. These tools allow for the voice of persons living with mental illness and substance use to be in the driver seat of their recovery planning. This joint project is being carried out in Fraser Health community mental health centers. We will complete two activities in collaboration with practice and patient partners. First, we will develop a toolkit for clinical leaders to prepare healthcare providers to use person-centred assessment tools for shared decision making and person-centred recovery planning. Also, we will create evidence summaries and learning resources for managers/leaders to further assist providers to use these tools and to lessen any barriers to change. These activities will help with the ongoing usage of person-centred assessment tools by persons served and providers. The goal is to make use person-centred assessment tools to provide mental health and recovery services that focus on the needs of persons, which ultimately improves health outcomes of British Columbians.
We wish to create a video that bolsters an increased awareness of how the CanConnect assistive technology can improve the quality and accessibility of virtual social communications, and thereby contribute to the improvement of older adult’s (OAs) wellbeing and mental health. Our research showed that OAs became more interested, engaged, and curious about CanConnect when they saw their friends having positive experiences with loved ones using the technology. In choosing a video as a vehicle for KT, we seek to appeal to viewers and potential research users on a more emotional, intellectual, and communal level, showing the power of using CanConnect technology with family members and friends in everyday interactions. We also believe that showcasing these positive interpersonal interactions on video establishes further trust between researchers and the community. Video represents an opportunity to tell the stories of real people, in real places, living their real lives; and these stories can invite conversation between existing narratives and our own experiences. In consultation with local community partners, within this proposed project, we see an opportunity to re-visit, and potentially re-write stories, together.
Team members: Matilde Cervantes (UVic); Robin Syme (CanAssist); Karen Kobayashi (UVic).
As BC strengthens its immunization policies and programs to respond to the challenges and learnings from the pandemic as well as health needs of British Columbians, it is essential for research to be a central pillar of decision-making. This project will co-develop, test and disseminate knowledge translation (KT) tools to support seamless integration of research into immunization policy and program implementation in BC. During phase 1, we will conduct an environmental scan to address the knowledge gap on effective KT strategies for moving research into evidence-informed policies and programs. During phase 2, researchers and research users will be invited to participate in a forum to inform the design of the KT tools. The tools will include knowledge product templates (e.g. policy briefs) and a guide to orient researchers to the immunization policy and implementation landscape in BC. Additionally, they will provide an overview of effective KT strategies and appropriate policy and implementation target audiences for disseminating a variety of vaccine research. During the final phase, we will design and disseminate the KT tools through workshops, webinars and social media. We will evaluate the process and impact of the new tools.
Team members: Monika Naus (BC Centre for Disease Control); Gabrielle Gaultier (UBC); Julie Bettinger (UBC); Bonnie Henry (Ministry of Health); Susan Hollenberg (UBC); Bryce Wong (BC Pharmacy Association).
