The following has been sent to all Island Health staff, medical staff, students and volunteers on behalf of Marko Peljhan, Interim VP, Clinical Operations, and Dr. Ben Williams, VP, Medicine, Quality, Research and Chief Medical Executive.
January 6, 2023
Health System Capacity Emergency Operations Centre (EOC)
Each January, Island Health and all Canadian health regions experience an increase in demand due to the prevalence of illness and system utilization at this time of year. Each year our teams take actions to mitigate those demands to the best of our abilities. We always come together to support those who need care, and each other, to get through this seasonal surge.
The demands this January are exacerbated by a health system and population recovering from a prolonged response to the pandemic.
There is also the continuing, increasing pressure on our care teams. While we continue to advance short, medium and longer-term work on recruitment, retention and care service redesign – and progress is being made – we know the burden of striving to provide high quality, safe care weighs heavily on every member of the Island Health family.
Starting Monday January 9th, Island Health will be restarting our Health System Capacity Emergency Operations Centre (EOC) structure to support an Island-wide coordinated and accelerated approach to the annual surge pressure we face at this time of year.
BC Health Minister Adrian Dix announced this morning that all health authorities are taking this same action. This will bring a province-wide system approach, and allow us to share best practices and innovative ideas, and take additional actions to mitigate demands. We will learn from others, and share our learnings and successes as well.
In his briefing today, Health Minister Dix acknowledged the extraordinary work of care providers over the past three years.
“It's been three years and this period of constant demand on the health care system and increasing demand has been met by the extraordinary work of doctors and nurses, health sciences professionals and health care workers,” he said. “I want to thank our health care workers, express my gratitude to them, for their continued exceptional work in the communities and in acute care. We are taking these steps to support them and to support patients to make sure people get the care they need in very challenging times.”
At Island Health, we know many actions can make a difference. We have seen that through our surge work over the fall. Island Health care teams developed new community-based transitional care units and long-term bed capacity, 7 days/week home care nursing services in regions that did not previously have them in place, and primary care intensive case management. Our hospital teams accelerated and expanded discharge processes, team-based care models in medical/surgical units, and long-length-of-stay reviews.
These actions, and many others like them, will be strengthened and accelerated through our EOC structure over the coming weeks. We are standing up one Health System Capacity EOC in Island Health to support all operations, including acute, community and long-term care, and the services that support them.
Mobilizing our EOC structure also helps ensure we keep safety for everyone front and centre as the demands for services increase.
Everyone has the opportunity to contribute and make a difference – just as we have throughout our COVID response in the past few years. Some of you will be asked to fill formal roles in the EOC structure. Others will be asked to participate in various initiatives and activities to help make the changes necessary for our response.
We need to accelerate the work we know makes a difference. We need to try new ideas – maybe introduced elsewhere – that could make a difference.
Your clinical and medical leaders will receive more information on next steps in the coming days, and are here to support you and your colleagues – both through the challenge we are facing, and the opportunities we have to work through them.
Regular updates on our progress in this work will be provided in The Weekly.