to IFIC Ireland Autumn 2020 Update

Welcome to the Autumn 2020 edition of the IFIC Ireland newsletter. We have updates on IFIC Ireland and IFIC activities over the past number of months, ValueCare project, our partners and steering group members along with some upcoming events and links of interest.

We wish all the IFIC Ireland family a healthy few months - looking forward to meeting you at one of our upcoming events and if you would like to get in touch, please contact Karen @ karenoconnell@integratedcarefoundation.org.

Rehabilitation Care
Wednesday, November 25th @ 2pm

Our next session in our 2020 webinar series will focus on rehabilitation care and how various initiatives in Ireland are enhancing the experience of integrated care for patients, informal caregivers and health care professionals. Edina O’Driscoll, National Clinical Lead – Rehabilitation Medicine, HSE will speak about The Rehab Landscape in Ireland: A journey towards change on the rollout of the National Clinical Programme for Rehabilitation Medicine across Ireland. We will also hear from Fiona Steed, Group Lead Allied Health at UL Hospital Group on the development and evolution of the Intermediate Care Facility at UL Arena initially deployed as part of the response to the Covid 19 pandemic and has evolved to deliver further service to the population of the mid-west of Ireland.

On July 23rd, IFIC Ireland convened it's first formal meeting of its Steering Group members. IFIC Ireland Steering Group will help take forward IFIC’s mission and aims across the region on a more sustained basis, and a commitment to advise, discuss and prioritize IFIC Ireland’s future activities in the region. The Steering Group will have a mutual commitment to standards of excellence in advancing the science, knowledge and the support to adoption of integrated care in policy and practice and will seek to work together to develop projects, educational activities or material of mutual benefit that meet the aims and objectives of IFIC Ireland.

Our Steering Group is comprised of Chairperson, Dr Sloan Harper; Directors, Prof Áine Carroll and Fiona Lyne; IFIC Ireland Co-ordinator, Karen O'Connell; IFIC Ireland Communications Officer, Darren Curran; Dr Siobhán Ní Bhríain, HSE National Clinical Advisor and General Lead for Integrated Care; Martin Hayes, HSCNI Programmes Director for Integrated Care Partnerships; Muriel Farrell, Programme Lead Department of Health SláinteCare Implementation Office; Jacqui Browne, Chairperson Disabled Persons Organisations Coalition.

We extend our sincere thanks to all our Steering Group members for their commitment to and support of IFIC Ireland and look forward to working with you all as part of the IFIC Ireland family.

IFIC Ireland launched the Knowledge Tree for Ireland at the SláinteCare Integration Fund Projects Learning Network event on October 1st last. The Knowledge Tree is a one-stop shop for integrated care resources relevant to an Irish context that is easily accessible, searchable, current and extensible and will grow to become a global resource for IFIC produced resources and integrated care published research.

You can explore what we've already published at https://integratedcarefoundation.org/the-knowledge-tree and keep an eye out for regular updates on the Knowledge Tree

The Certificate in Integrated Care has been designed using IFIC’s 9 Pillars of Integrated Care as a module based course of online learning. The accessible, high quality programme is offered through a virtual online campus. Commencing in early 2021, if you are a health and care professional looking to further your knowledge in Integrated Care, sign up now to be the first to hear about the course.

You will have exclusive access to IFIC’s impressive network of experts in Integrated Care, all dedicated to your learning. The course will consist of one-to-one sessions, group work, live tutorials, live group sessions alongside access to IFIC’s wealth of content featuring pre-recorded material, webinars, reading and quality learning reinforcement to underpin your learning.

The ValueCare research team in Ireland has made great progress in recent months. The ValueCare project focuses on co-designing an eHealth solution to help older people (≥75) experiencing mild to moderate frailty to live independently in their homes. In order to create the eHealth solution, focus groups and interviews must be conducted with its intended users to inform its design, including older people, family caregivers, health and social care professionals. The ValueCare research team have been liaising with representatives from the Integrated Care Programme for Older People, Age Friendly Ireland and local county councils in Cork and Kerry to access their participants. Despite the physical restrictions of Covid-19, the team have organised to host their focus groups and interviews in an engaging, online environment. These sessions will cover the health needs and preferences amongst people with frailty and the potential of using technology to address these needs effectively. Data collection is expected to commence at the end of October. The ValueCare research team are also due to present the study to Cork and Kerry ICPOP multidisciplinary teams on November 6th to identify participants for the focus groups with health and social care professionals.

To keep up to date with the project, please visit: https://projectvaluecare.eu/

VIDEO: Cork/Kerry Pilot Site

The European Health Futures Forum has set up a European resource centre for patient and citizen empowerment and associated activity such as Health Literacy and Self-Care (www.cempac.org)

They have already provided free courses for professionals and citizens/patients, a library of resource materials and a network of European experts.

For the next stage of their development, they are keen to have greater focus on the local needs of potential users of the facility across Europe.

The European Health Futures Forum recognise the value of obtaining an overview across Europe of the extent to which citizen empowerment is represented in policy and associated activity at National and Regional levels.

Although patient empowerment is often cited, for example in relation to current work on health technology including mHealth, there appears to be no overarching consensus on a strategy for local implementation, nor even how patient empowerment is defined for strategic purposes.

This survey aims to gather information which would, when collated, help to address these issues. It will only takes a few minutes of your time.

Your input in this strategic planning is very much valued.

Each of the 17 Integrated Care Partnerships (ICPs) in Northern Ireland took some time to reflect on their collective experiences throughout the pandemic to date.

This paper summarises the common themes from that feedback, and describes the role that ICPs have played and the insights that have been gathered based on the perspectives of the varied membership of the ICPs.

It is recognised that protecting the health and wellbeing of the population of NI is a huge challenge, both in terms of planning for a potential second peak of Covid 19 and in rebuilding HSC services and wider society. There is an opportunity for ICPs to support that work at a local level to help ensure that change is taken forward in a joined up and integrated way.

You can find a copy of the full report on here.

The DPO Coalition, is an alliance of Disabled People and their organisations (DPOs) in Ireland who have come together to create a shadow report to the UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities on Ireland’s Implementation of the UN CRPD. The DPO Coalition is committed to the human and social rights model of disability. Membership of the DPO Coalition is open to all current rights-based national DPOs in Ireland and current members include As I Am - Ireland's National Autism Advocacy Organisation; Independent Living Movement Ireland (ILMI); Irish Deaf Society (IDS); National Platform of Self Advocates; Voice of Vision Impairment (VVI); and Ms. Jacqui Browne – Independent Chair.

The primary aim of the DPO Coalition is to increase participation of disabled persons in the implementation of legislation and policies to fully implement the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in Ireland.

On October 23rd last Minister Anne Rabbitte, Minister of State with responsibility for Disability, announced funding for the Disability Participation and Consultation Network including funding for the network members including Inclusion Ireland, the DPO Coalition, AsIAm, Disability Federation of Ireland, and Mental Health Reform.

The 20th International Conference on Integrated Care Virtual edition took place over 4 consecutive Wednesdays in September. ICIC20 Virtual presented 100 sessions with over 150 hours of digital integrated care content across 4 themed days presented through the innovative Events OnAir portal. All sessions are available on demand within the portal for those who registered, so delegates can go back and catch up on other sessions in their own time.

The opening & closing ceremonies and all 4 plenaries are available to ALL for free. Just click below to start watching!