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Four federal government officials traveled to Sioux Lookout to:

• meet with the K-Net team,
• learn about the Kuh-ke-nah Network,
• discuss strategies for utilizing the network for delivery of services and programs, and
• identify mutually beneficial partnership opportunities for supporting community based broadband networks.

The four officials included:

• Robert Vigneault, Implementation Services Manager - HC’s e-Health Solutions Unit
• Roy Hart, Regional Director Information Technology, HC
• Richard Lekkari, Regional Director, HC’s e-Health Solutions Unit
• Carl Seibel, Telecommunications Officer, IC’s FedNor.

Pictures and an overview of the visit and meetings are available on-line.

Keewaytinook Okimakanak’s Telehealth initiative and the regional application to the Primary Health Care Transition Fund is resulting the opportunity to begin working with community and regional initiatives to both demonstrate and support broadband connectivity in rural and remote communities. The Kuh-ke-nah Network with its partner communities and organizations is able to support the growth of e-health opportunities across the region and the country.

Sioux Lookout, Ontario
May 16, 2003

For Immediate Release:

POST SARS "NEW NORMAL"

Here at the Sioux Lookout Meno-Ya-Win Health Centre, Dr. T. O’Driscoll, the Chief of Staff and Debra Harris, VP Health Services have taken the following actions after receiving news yesterday that Toronto was cleared by the World Health Organization and is returning to full access status.

SARS screening at entrance will cease 0800 hours Friday, May 16, 2003 and "NEW NORMAL" directives from the Ministry of Health and Long Term Care will take effect.

The Sioux Lookout Meno-Ya-win Health Center staff will continue to incorporate the SARS screening within the triage process. This means all Emergency Department patients and patients who are direct admissions who bypass the Emergency Department will be asked about travel history to SARS affected areas and be screened for signs and symptoms of SARS.

Facilities will continue to reinforce hand washing/hand hygiene with staff, patients and visitors.

The hospital will continue to maintain enhanced surface cleaning.

The "New Normal" directives stipulate that all Ontario health care facilities strictly adhere to the following visiting hours:

Acute Care 1300 – 2000 daily (1pm – 8pm)
LTC/Chronic Care 0800 – 2000 daily (8am – 8pm)

The Sioux Lookout Meno-Ya-Win Health Centre will continue with high vigilance monitoring of communicable diseases and infection control standards.

More detailed information is available from:

Northwestern Health Unit: 1-800-830-5978
Northwestern Health Unit web site:

www.nwhu.on.ca
Telehealth: 1-866-797-0000
Health Canada web site: www.hc.sc.gc.ca/english/index/html

For more information locally contact:

Phil Janzen, 737-3030 ext 6099
Sioux Lookout Meno-Ya-Win Health Centre

The final version of the "Evaluation of the Keewaytinook Okimakanak Telepsychiatry Pilot Project" dated December 21, 2002 was recently published. Keewaytinook Okimakanak now has a few bound copies of this document available but is making the publication available in a digital PDF format as well. The comprehensive evaluation was completed by the Centre for Health Services and Policy Research at Queen’s University with the principal leads in the research being Christian Keresztes (PhD, CPsych) and Ralph Shaw (MA).

The Executive Summary describes the project ....

During the period from April, 2000, through March, 2001, the Keewaytinook Okimakanak First Nations Tribal Council from Northern Ontario undertook a pilot project to provide telepsychiatry services to two of its six communities. The purpose of the pilot project and its evaluation was to assess the long-term viability of telepsychiatry as an ongoing program for First Nations communities. The evaluation undertook to assess the costs of providing the service to each of the primary stakeholders, as well as its effects on access to mental health care, the clinical process of care, health outcomes, and user satisfaction. ....

This report is divided into seven sections, a set of appendices and a bibliography of the relevant readings. Section 1 of this report has introduced the purpose of the pilot project and the broad framework and form of the evaluation.

With a brief description of Keewaytinook Okimakanak and the Nishnawbe-aski-Nation, and an overview of healthcare and mental services issues in the north, Section 2 provides context to the evaluation and will (we trust) assist the lay reader to interpret the findings, discussion, conclusions and recommendations, which follow. Section 3 undertakes to describe the Keewaytinook Okimakanak Telepsychiatry Project and the driving needs, rationale and goals which drew people to create the telepsychiatry network.

Section 4 broadly describes the two approaches used in the evaluation and specifies the questions asked to assess the pilot project.

Section 5 is a report of the cost- effectiveness analysis, describing how psychiatric service is currently being provided, how it is was provided through the telepsychiatric project, and how it might be provided through an on-going telepsychiatric programme. It addresses the impact of each on the overall healthcare resources available, including the size of their budget envelopes, expected transfers of economic burden, and relative fiscal sustainability.

Section 6 presents an analysis of the clinical service provided through the project, including an assessment of clinical outcomes resulting from the service and the clinical impact on the overall regime of mental health care of those clients who received a psychiatric consultation through the medium of video telecommunication.

Section 7 lays out the conclusions drawn from the analysis, and a set of recommendations drawn from the conclusions is presented in Section 8. Supporting documentation appears in a series of appendices to complete the report.

Members of the Sioux Lookout Health Zone Telehealth Sustainability Working Group met by teleconference on April 17 to discuss the strategy for developing telehealth services in each of the First Nations across the region. The next steps in the preparation of a business case for Health Canada's Primary Care Health Transition Fund were presented with everyone taking on different tasks so the proposal can be completed and submitted by May 22 deadline.

Present at this meeting were John Rowlandson (chair), Lynda Roberts, Dr. Ed Brown, Carl Seibel, Orpah Mckenzie, James Kakepetum, Dr. Claudette Chase, Paul Capon, Alvin Fidder, Brian Beaton, Janet Gordon and Donna Williams. Regrets came from James Adams, Rosalie Davis, Frank Schmidt, Nancy Sagmeister, Susan Sue Chan and Jim Morris.

Agenda Items included:

1. Business Arising from December meeting
2. Sustainability Update

• Health Canada Bridge Funding for KO Telehealth
• Primary Health Care Transition Fund
  http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/phctf-fassp/english/progcrit.html
  (proposal deadline, funding limitations, scope)
• Partnership Development (FedNor, NOHFC, HRDC)
• Ontario Telehealth Funding (NORTH)

3. Key PHCTF Issues

• Key PHCTF Questions (attached)
• Draft budget for review (attached)

4. Other Items
5. Next Meeting: Thursday 15 May, 2003 - 0900 to 10:30 (CENTRAL)

Next Steps includes:

• providing an update to all partner First Nations and organizations across the region;
• obtaining letters of support and/or band council resolutions from each First Nation and organization;
• securing additional funding partners for this development (NOHFC, FedNor, HRDC, SLAAMB, etc);
• producing and submitting the business case to Health Canada by May 22.

Everyone is invited to submit their comments and letters of support for this initiative below. On-line documentation about this initiative can be found at:

• KO's Telehealth Presentation to Nexus Tech 2003 conference (April, 2003)
• Sioux Lookout Zone Telehealth Conference Report (November, 2002)
• Sioux Lookout Zone Telehealth Conference (October, 2002)
• Keewaytinook Okimakanak's Telehealth web site

Keewaytinook Okimakanak's Telehealth team produced a new information brochure for circulation. It is available on-line (650K PDF file).

For further information about KO's Telehealth Services, contact Donna Williams, Telehealth Coordinator or Gibbet Stevens, Telehealth Scheduler by e-mail or at 1-800-387-3740.

406 consults within the NORTH Network for the month of January! What a start to the new year!

The NW was certainly responsible for a huge chunk of that activity as evident by the enclosed activity log. Use of the equipment for meetings is quickly gaining popularity. In January, two new specialists joined the increasing number of Thunder Bay Regional Hospital physicians willing to offer their services using Telehealth. Tracy Saarinen has been brought onboard as a temporary half time coordinator at Thunder Bay Regional Hospital and this has given me much more opportunity to fulfill my role as regional coordinator.

Many activities are occurring!

• Successful cardiology, surgery, medical, neurology, psychiatry, dermatology, geriatric, rheumatology clinics have all occurred to the region
• A second international education opportunity occurred, this time to Israel
• A Thunder Bay patient has been asked to participate in a photo op for NORTH Network
• NW District Health Council requested an article giving an update on NW Telehealth
• Teleradiology seems to be progressing smoothly
• Professionals are calling Telehealth office to request educational topics, to schedule meetings and to request a block of time in which they can run clinics
• Meetings using video conferencing are increasing weekly (Air Ambulance, OR Nurses, Perinatology group, NOMP, Criticall and Eating disorder Team to name a few)
• Educational opportunities occur weekly and, at some points, daily (palliative care, psychiatry, geriatrics, to name a few). These are offered by UHN and local clinicians.
• New ABC Manual has been mailed to all sites

NW Telehealth sites look forward to February and increased activity. We look forward to the installation of the stethoscopes and to the new bridge installation. NORTH Network Telehealth is never static!

Laurie Sherrington
NW Regional Telehealth Coordinator

Donna Williams, KO's Telehealth Coordinator and Carol Wood, Menoyawin Health Centre's Telehealth Coordinator provided workshop participants with an orientation session about the use of the telemedicine suite of tools. A live connection with the Deer Lake Nursing station was completed with Lily Sawanas, the Deer Lake Telehealth Coordinator (see the pictures from the session).

Clarification about the telemedicine suite and video conferencing equipment that is now available in most Sioux Lookout First Nations was discussed using the hand-out prepared for this gathering.

The conference was an incredible experience.  There were hundreds of people involved in Aboriginal health from all over Canada. Between 30 and 50 attended my presentation.  

I heard may good things about NAHO, that they were accomplishing a lot in a short time, and that it was seen as a dynamic, highly functional organization.  Valerie Gideon, who was working as a Health Information Policy Analyst in the Policy & Research Unit within the organization (informatics, telehealth, FNHIS, etc) has been recently promoted to Director of the Aboriginal stream within the organization.  She is very excited about our project and is promoting it as a "success" story.

We also had some adventures connecting to North Spirit Lake for the demonstration portion of my presentation.  The technicians there did not have a 3 port NT1 device to be able to use the 3 ISDN lines. So we were only able to connect at 128kbps.  The image was okay for the presentation as long as there was little movement (tough with the young person). The sound transmission was good.  

Julie and her grandson in North Spirit Lake did a great job of showing how telehealth was benefiting her community.  Audience participants came to me and told me that it was very grounding to see what accessing services can be like at a community level.

Listening to CBC radio's World Report this morning, I picked up a story about how doctors across the country are now getting together to discuss patients and share their thoughts concerning treatments.

"Hospital rounds are going hi-tech. For the first time, doctors in different parts of Canada are using conference calls and the internet to treat patients through "virtual rounds". Brooks DeCillia reports." (From the last story o­n their summary sheet)

You can listen to the entire short story that includes some actual taped discussions between doctors in RealOne Audio by clicking here and scrolling to the last story (at 10:25 of the 12:30 report).

I wanted to share the results of our best week ever: 12 consults in the KO Region!

1. Fort Severn - Dr. Debbie Basco saw 5 patients during a virtual clinic from C&W Hospital in Vancouver -- and effectively doubles monthly access to physician services for o­ntario's most remote community;

2. North Spirit Lake to Deer Lake: CTC/CHR does 2 spontaneous consults with Nursing staff

3. Poplar Hill - 3 telepsychiatry sessions

4. Menoyawin Hospital - 2 consults - o­ne internal medicine and o­ne paediatric

Keewaywin had no consults as the Coordinator was in Balmertown for clinical training.

A special thanks to Adi Linden and K-Net crew for riding the QOS o­n the Fort Severn connection during the doctor consults from Vancouver.

Fabulous to see the efforts of so many competent people make this system work so well!

John Rowlandson, KO Telehealth Project Manager