IFIC Communications team in conversation with Jodeme Goldhar, Co-Director of IFIC Canada and Treasurer of the Foundation looks back on 2020 and what we have to look forward to for IFIC Canada in 2021.
You played a key role in developing the Foundation’s report “Realising the true Value of Integrated Care” – what did your involvement look like?
The global significance of integrated care as a way to drive health system improvements and outcomes had become unprecedented with the backdrop of a global pandemic. The experience in Canada and the imperative to work together in communities as ‘one team’ across the full continuum of health and social care is the only way to effectively respond. This is no different than the ways care needs to be designed and delivered. We contributed to the imperative for the paper as well as the content with a specialized focus on the importance of co designing the answers with citizens. We created a webinar with a focus on the one integrated community response to COVID-19 and featured three examples from Ontario, Canada where this approach was being leveraged through the provincial example of Ontario Health Teams. We also collaborated globally to further punctuate the message.
ICIC20 went virtual this year – what was your experience of the conference?
Virtual means of connected learning and building capability and capacity is a unique opportunity. A global pandemic has allowed us to pivot and maximize this opportunity. Moving virtual works when we use a human centred design for how content is delivered and the means by which networks and movements are built. Building on the virtual communities that have developed through the many country hubs and interest groups, IFIC and IFIC Canada are strengthening this capability and bringing these emergent skills to the movement for integrated care globally and locally. The virtual conference was a first and significant step.
What have we to look forward to from IFIC Canada in 2021?
IFIC Canada’s purpose is to fuel the movement for Integrated Care across North America and strengthen global connectivity so that we create a magnetic pull to the future where care is seamless across health and social care and is co designed by those deliver and those that receive care. IFIC Canada is hosting its first North American Conference in October 2021 and we have a critical build towards that conference with six virtual community masterclasses planned, the launch of the North American Integrated Care case studies and the creation of the permanent home for IFIC Canada within the Dalla Lana School of Public Health.
Jodeme Goldhar
Co-Director, IFIC Canada
Board Member and Treasurer, International Foundation for Integrated Care (IFIC)