In Fall 2021 the ISU undertook a Learning Cycle to better understand resilience in healthcare, motivated by seeing the increasing pressures facing both the primary care system and individual healthcare providers. Through an environmental scan and interviews with healthcare professionals we learned that:
- The pandemic has exacerbated pre-existing challenges in primary care. People are tired and capacity is stretched. Finding the time to rest and build adaptive capacity is hard.
- Teams are a protective factor that can enhance adaptive capacity. Investing in strategies that enhance relationships and trust to build a culture of Team Based Care is a priority.
- Community-level coordination, planning and interventions are needed to identify needs and target supports to address backlogs in service provision.
- The shift to team-based primary care must be supported by education resources for providers, teams, learners & the public.
- Communication strategies are needed to ensure there is shared understanding of the goals and process of primary care transformation. Clear pathways will ensure that successes can be shared and common challenges can be identified and addressed.
- All providers need to be included in systems-level planning. Policy and funding structures that enable equitable recognition of the value all providers bring to primary care is important.
- Changing the system to embrace team based care and provide alternatives to fee-for-service funding is a generational shift that will require sustained effort and investment.
In July of 2022 the ISU was successful in applying to the Strategic Investment Fund (UBC) to apply this learning to enhance Preceptor Resilience in Team-based Primary Care Learning Centres. This project focused on the adaptation and refinement of tools to support preceptor resilience and teaching in team based care, in partnership with the Department of Family practice and the Team-based Primary Care Learning Centres project.