June’s Wellington-Dufferin-Guelph Board of Health meeting will be data driven. Not that the decisions of the board are not usually data driven, but data will be the focus on this month’s meeting in terms of how Public Health is using it to improve their programs, not to mention the literal maintenance and dissemination of that data. We’re also got injuries, healthy babies and public health’s annual community report.
NOTE #1: This meeting will be in-person at the Public Health office on Chancellors Way and it will also be available to watch online. To get the link you will have to send a request to join the meeting via an online form that you can find here. Deadline to send in the request is Wednesday June 7 at 11 am.
NOTE #2: The meeting begins at 2 pm.
MOH Update(s)– Medical Officer of Health Dr. Nicola Mercer will deliver her verbal report on current matters facing Public Health.
PRESENTATION: Public Health Innovations in Analytics. This presentation is tied to the report that’s discussed two spaces down.
Emergency Preparedness (January 2020 – June 2023) – Every public health office has to have plans in place to respond to a wide variety of potential emergencies, and of course those plans were activated over three years ago at the start of the global COVID-19 pandemic. Normally, health units have to hold rehearsals of their emergency plans to be in compliance, but that’s not necessarily because the program was run for nearly three years. Lesson learned? They need to expand preparedness and training, update internal processes before the next emergency, and make sure that staff are keeping a good work-life balance in less stressful times so that they’re mentally ready the next time the proverbial hammer falls.
Public Health Innovations in Analytics – This information report highlights some of the changes Public Health made in terms of data management during the pandemic. The report mentions, among other accomplishments, new dashboards for respiratory illness and an upcoming update to the COVID-19 dashboard, email reminders about COVID vaccine boosters, expanding the availability of open source data, and, yes, the possibility of incorporating artificial intelligence tools.
2023: The Modern Enterprise – Sounds like a movie title, but this report actually outlines Public Health’s intention to be at the forefront of using technology to stay on top of managing the region’s public health needs. Among other things, this means improved cyber security, more online courses, and improved data management. To that end, Public Health moved its on-premises data centre to a local Tier IV data centre, which is owned by the Province of Ontario and will improve quality while promising only 26.3 minutes of down time annually.These projects help Public Health respond to community concerns effectively and learn how to better give the community the information they need.
Healthy Babies Healthy Children Program – This program is a mandatory one, and funded by Ministry of Children, Community and Social Services. Like a lot of Public Health programs, this one’s in a rebuilding season right now, and the demand for HBHC has only increased. This has required Public Health to find new innovations and efficiencies like streamlining documentation efforts, using more text messaging to reduce “phone tag” and using a hybrid of in-person and virtual engagement. Public Health will continue to move forward with efficiency seeking efforts and will re-establish more community partnerships.
Injury Surveillance and Prevention Report – Did you know that fall injuries account for more than 60 per cent of injury-related hospital visits? Did you know that kids between the age of 1 and 5, and youth between 13 and 19 are at the highest risk of injury? These are some of the insights from this report, which also notes some obvious info including the fact that men are more at risk of injury than women, and that people over the age of 75 are more likely to end up at the hospital with an injury related to a fall. The report does also note that while hospital visits and fatalities related to injuries are on the rise in the region, they are also preventable with increased education, awareness, and regulatory measures.
2022 Community Report – Like a lot of organizations, Public Health publishes an annual report that chronicles agency milestones and programs from the last year. As mentioned before at these meetings, 2022 was a rebuilding year for Public Health with the return of regular programming like the dental health program, a new health issue in the form the Mpox outbreak, and the lingering ongoing concerns about COVID-19 including vaccine boosters and outbreak management. You can see the full report here.
Committee (Verbal) Report(s) – There are apparently going to be no committee reports for this meeting.
SEE THE COMPLETE AGENDA ON THE WDG Public Health WEBSITE HERE.
Guelph Politico 