Radical Collaboration for a Healthier World
Q+A with Mary Ann McColl, Project Lead
Q: Tell us about this project.
A: Our vision is to make all QHS spaces and programs fully accessible and inclusive for everyone. We need to consider the needs of people with different types of disabilities and, we need to work with representatives across QHS, Queen’s, Kingston Health Sciences Centre and the city. It is critical to every facet of QHS and how we work and learn together.
Q: What progress has been made?
A: To start, we decided to focus on disability accessibility, specifically physical and informational accessibility. We identified five priority buildings— Abramsky Hall, Botterell Hall, the Queen’s Cancer Research Institute, Macklem House and School of Medicine Building. These are specifically used by QHS and are not already scheduled for renovation or demolition. Our team also identified priorities for change: front entry, wayfinding, door openers, washrooms, classrooms, furniture and elevators. As part of that, we realized that there are some ‘quick wins’ we can achieve by implementing universal design standards for furniture and wayfinding signage.
Q: What are the next steps?
A: Now that we have set priorities, we need to continue to work with campus planning to address the front entrances of the priority buildings. Also, we know that disability is not the only factor that prevents people from having full access to our space or programs, and as we progress we will plan how to tackle these other barriers to full accessibility and inclusion at QHS.
Q+A with Stephen Vanner, Project Lead
Q: Tell us about this project.
A: Our aim is to increase annual research productivity to $200 million annually. We need to modernize the research environment to enable our researchers to grow their research programs, the impact of their discoveries and ultimately their translational benefits for all Canadians. Our vision is to build a new research engine – a better engine that's going to propel us into the future.
Q: What progress has been made?
A: We have done a detailed SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) analysis to understand the current research funding landscape. We want to identify short- and long-term goals and then begin operationalizing them. This includes building support and resources for our researchers to identify and assemble applications for new sources of funding. QHS has identified research superclusters in its strategic plan, and we need to ensure that we are taking advantage of every opportunity that comes along and that each supercluster is participating in submissions for large, multidisciplinary grants.
Q: What are the next steps?
A: Employing multiple tactics – from expanding clinical trials and the strategic expansion of grant and tri-council applications to increased commercialization. We need to re-organize into collaboratives large and small multidisciplinary research groups that are supported by core facilities and strategic recruitment.
DAT-EDI Working Groups building inclusive QHS community
Q+A with Colleen Davison, Project Lead
Q: Tell us about this project.
A: We want to ensure the profile of learners, staff, and faculty matches that of the Canadian population. To do that, we need to build a physical and virtual EDIIA space that supports initiatives to advance this goal and create an accessible, organized, and accurate way to capture QHS population profile data which can inform interventions and evaluations. Most importantly, we need to create the climate for change and engage and enable the organization to implement it.
Q: What progress has been made?
A: At the EDIIA Forum on October 6, we launched the EDIIA Action Plan. It follows the recommendations of the Dean’s Action Table working groups and aligns with the faculty’s EDIIA strategic goal.
On November 3, 2022, we opened The Nest – a safe and inspiring space where everyone feels welcome and supported and where we can work on advancing the QHS EDIIA initiatives and strategic goals.
Q: What are the next steps?
To create EDIIA action committees to lead and guide the EDIIA Action Plan. Our goals associated with admissions, recruitment, retention, and mentorship are all directly relevant to the EDIIA strategic goal of matching our demographic profile to that of the general population. We need to continue to build critical structures – including creating a better data system, and better supports for the recruitment and retention of EDIIA learners, staff, and faculty.
In 2023, we will launch the Office of Indigenous Health including hiring a new Associate Dean and Research Chair in Indigenous Health. We will continue to build on early successes like our EDIIA studentships and our Outreach and Summer Program, along with new elements like developing an EDIIA champion program. Finally, we also want to hold an EDIIA Forum each fall for the QHS community to learn about and share progress on our goals.
Q+A with Richard van Wylick, Project Lead
Q: Tell us about this project.
A: The vision for this initiative is to have the QHS community learning together, from and with each other in a meaningful way. We want them to know each other, be able to relate to each other so we gain a broader understanding and appreciation for our individual strengths, disciplines and expertise. The ultimate goal is to create fully functional healthcare teams built on interdisciplinary strengths and abilities to create better healthcare experiences and outcomes.
Q: What progress has been made?
A: We have completed an environmental scan to understand the current educational landscape and to help us identify the opportunities we have. We do have a number of interprofessional education collaborations already happening across QHS and my hope is that we can scale some of those initiatives to include other programs. That is one of the areas where we want look for ‘quick wins.’
Q: What are the next steps?
A: We need to look closer at how we want to accomplish the goal of having 20% of our curriculum be interdisciplinary. Part of that is ensuring we are measuring the right things and being clear on what our outcomes would be. This goal will only be accomplished by everyone in QHS working together, but we also need to establish a focused team and different working groups to help advance this goal in earnest, so getting those teams in place is an important next step.
'Looking to Inspire': QHS Outreach and Summer Program aims to diversify health sciences
Q+A with Brenda Brouwer, 2022 Project Lead
Q: Tell us about this project.
A: The Queen’s Health Sciences Complex will have purpose-built physical spaces that support integrated education, training, and research across professions and disciplines. This will foster collaborations that elevate our work and ultimately lead to improved health outcomes across communities and cultures. The building will be the home to the School of Nursing, School of Rehabilitation Therapy, research centers, core facilities, clinical spaces, and more.
Q: What progress has been made?
A site massing – that includes heritage and parking considerations – is complete and the University's Campus Master Plan has been revised to reflect an expanded footprint and a multi-level structure. The proposed building would be across from the Museum of Health Care on George Street and physically connected to both Botterell Hall and the Queen’s Cancer Research Institute.
Q: What are the next steps?
An application for re-zoning will be submitted to the City early in 2023. Broad consultation with students, staff, faculty, alumni, and community partners to support the building's construction including the purpose-built spaces in it is crucial. Our vision is to create a building that supports a multidisciplinary and interprofessional ecosystem of research, learning and practice such that our future leaders, scientists and practitioners are prepared to take on the health challenges of today and tomorrow.
Q+A with Roger Pilon, Project Lead
Q: Tell us about this project.
A: There are approximately 20,000 unattached patients in the Frontenac, Lennox & Addington region without a primary care provider (Nurse Practitioner or Physician). The vision of the New Health Home is to provide universal access to integrated and person-centric primary care by offering core health services onsite, seamless connections to other health and wellness services, and providing equity-oriented health service delivery. In doing so, we hope to have a healthier population, provide an optimal environment for clinical training, recruit new health professionals to this region, and create a cost-effective, scalable model of health service delivery that can be replicated in other communities.
Changing the face of health sciences – The Next 25
Q+A with Tony Sanfilippo, 2022 Project Lead
Q: Tell us about this project.
A: We will establish a regional campus at Lakeridge Health in Durham Region to deliver a purpose-built, community-based curriculum that will graduate family physicians committed to developing a practice in their local communities. This is taking a different approach to medical education and will integrate classroom and workplace learning where trainees learn and work alongside doctors and health professionals in the communities in which they live. We are looking for physicians whose primary goal is to take care of people as a family doctor.
This project is motivated by the critical shortage of family doctors in Canada which has implications for the entire healthcare system. We also, as a medical school, want to be innovative and upend the status quo of medical education to be more productive and effective at training modern doctors. We also want to deepen our partnership with Lakeridge Health to be more collaborative in training doctors and developing new models of care.
Q: What progress has been made?
A: We started in earnest last April by collaborating with Lakeridge Health on our vision and objectives. Then, over the summer, four working groups comprised of staff and faculty from Queen’s and Lakeridge Health examined issues related to admissions, curriculum, communities and faculty. From there, we held a summit to look at their findings and have created a report that has 60 recommendations. This is our blueprint for the program and is guiding the next phase of the project.
Q: What are the next steps?
A: We have a lot of work ahead of us and it is already underway in areas ranging from admissions and curriculum to faculty, facilities, leadership, and administrative structure. We aim to welcome the first cohort of 20 students in September 2023.
Q+A with Lynne-Marie Postovit, Project Lead
Q: Tell us about this project.
A: We want to harness the research strengths and organizational structures that exist within the QHS research ecosystem to establish six research superclusters (health data and AI; neuroscience; cancer; translational medicine; global health; health systems). By doing this, we can better support shared services, increase cluster-supported team grants, and promote interdisciplinary research collaboration. It’s all about using our resources in the best way so we can answer some of the big questions related to health.
Q: What progress has been made?
A: We have a team that is working to understand what’s going on within the various individual units, research centres and institutes and talk about how we can work together in the best way. As part of that, we identified strengths—what we do well—and what resources we could share. We have also created a proposal to establish an Advisory committee that would be common to all the clusters and help coordinate this work.
Q: What are the next steps?
A: Now that we have gathered the data, we need to engage all of QHS to get more people involved in this initiative. This is more than about the research centres and institutes working together, it’s about employing a model to support shared services and to do so in a sustainable way. I hope we can use this model to increase cluster-supported team grants going forward where we tackle some of those big research questions using people from teams across QHS.
Partnering to create opportunities for northern youth — The Next 25
Q+A with Heather Aldersey, 2022 Project Lead
Q: Tell us about this project.
A: We’re pursuing global (including local) health equity, and we’re being very intentional about doing things differently. We’re reimagining global health via a collaborative research institute for global and population health grounded in anticolonialism. Our starting place for all our work is the communities with whom we work, and their priorities, needs and questions. The values of respect, mutual benefit, humility, and courage will guide how we collaborate.
Q: What progress has been made?
A: A diverse interdisciplinary working group has come together to create the foundation of the institute (formerly called the Institute for Global and Population Health in the QHS Strategic Plan). Over the last year our working group has shared our ideas at Queen’s and in the community for feedback. In Fall 2022, we opened a call for collaborators. We’re now delighted to have a robust group of core collaborators who will be actively engaged in the work of the Institute and shaping its direction. In December 2022, we hosted our first Symposium to spread the word and to build momentum as we learn and challenge ourselves together.
Q: What are the next steps?
A: A key objective of the Queen’s Kaleidoscope Institute is to produce, uncover and unlock innovative, world-class knowledge to solve pressing, contemporary global health problems. As a research institute, 2023 will be focused on bringing core collaborators together to move forward on this, all while building and nurturing our community.
Q+A with David Taylor, Project Lead
Q: Tell us about this project?
A: When we think about Indigenous health transformation, it really begins with health education transformation. We are co-creating the Weeneebayko Health Education Campus with the Weeneebayko Area Health Authority (WAHA), which serves the healthcare needs of remote communities in the western James Bay coast region. Our plan is to co-create decolonized, interprofessional curricula for nursing, medicine, physiotherapy, occupational therapy, midwifery, and paramedicine. We will establish a campus in Moosonee in partnership with local, provincial, and federal governments. This is about training a new generation of healthcare providers – Indigenous healthcare providers ready to serve and transform their communities.
Q: What progress has been made?
A: We have secured funding from the Mastercard Foundation – details of which will be announced in early 2023. We're also working with local First Nations schools to co-create curriculum and resources that prepare high school students for post-secondary programs. Part of this project is about creating experiences and resources for youth to explore career opportunities in healthcare and provide application support.
Q: What are the next steps?
A: To build a collective leadership model with such a diverse partnership team and to build relationships with community partners. The top priority is community engagement. This is for community, and it's meant to be guided and shaped by community. We need to listen. We also need to work with government partners on everything from infrastructure to student seats dedicated to this campus.