The first day of May falls on a Wednesday, and since the monthly Wellington-Dufferin-Guelph Board of Health meeting is held on the first Wednesday of the month, we’re getting this one done early. At this meeting, prepare to learn about public health’s progress integrating new tech and processes into their procedures, plus how well they’re communicating and the regional picture when it comes to sexually transmitted diseases.
NOTE #1: This meeting will held in-person at the Chancellors Way offices of Public Health, but there will also be an option to attend virtually.
NOTE #2: To get the link to attend virtually 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 April at 11 am.
NOTE #3: 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.
PRESENTATIONS:
Data & Analytics Innovation in Public Health – See the report below.
Health Protection 2024 First Quarter Performance Indicator Summary – Presented for information, these are the stats from the first quarter of 2023 covering all the inspections that Public Health did over the first three months of the year, from the regular food safety inspection schedule to infection and communicable disease prevention and control.
Data & Analytics Innovation in Public Health – This report and presentation outlines several new initiatives where public health is using data and technology to improve services. Some of these projects are ongoing. For instance, public health is transitioning to it’s own tool to notify households about the Immunization of School Pupils Act. There’s also the expansion of open source data, new uses for the chatbot and using AI to monitor emerging public health concerns, and the strengthening of data governance as public health gets tech savvier. This is an information report for the board.
Special Event Digital Inspection Pilot – In 2023, Public Health ran a project to use mobile devices to conduct inspections of special event food vendors in the hope that it might streamline the process by simplifying the equipment needed and at the same time get better data. In the course of the pilot, which took place between April and November last year, 18 inspectors went to 22 events, and performed 246 inspections on a total of 175 vendors, and they got back a 96.5 per cent compliance rate. Most infractions discovered in that 3.5 per cent were able to be corrected on-site, but there were some functionality issues that that made the delivery of the inspection results occasionally burdensome. The mobile devices are now SOP for public health, except the software will now be accessed on a tablet device.
Corporate Communications Annual Report 2023 – Every year, public health communications staff prepare a report to outline all the communications they did in the year before, and that means everything from press releases to social media posts to interactions on the website. In 2023, much of public health’s communications efforts moved away from COVID-19 and the pandemic response and returned more generally to all the other things under public health’s bailiwick, but having said that the public health website last year was still viewed 150 per cent more times than it was pre-pandemic, and public healthadded 36,000 more followers on its social media channels.
Empowering Health for All: Launching an e-Learning Environment – “Public Health is introducing an online learning platform designed to streamline and enhance the educational experiences for health professionals and community members.” According to the report, the courses they will provide will be intuitive and user-friendly, and are designed to take down barriers like scheduling, cost and travel that might prevent people from taking part in a training workshop in-person. The first two modules will be designed for operators of recreational pools and spas, and operators of personal service settings like nail salons, hairdressers and tattoo parlours. Looking for this project to launch in June.
STI Trends Reported in Wellington-Dufferin-Guelph: 2023 – The good news is that gonorrhea and infectious syphilis rates went down in 2023 when compared to 2022, but the rates of chlamydia and latent syphilis continued to increase, as they have every year since 2021. There was also a sight increase in the number of new HIV infections year-over-year, and after all the hype in 2022, there were zero cases of Mpox in 2023. These local trends are more or less in keeping with the provincial averages.
Finance + Audit Committee Report – There are two reports from this committee, one is the 2023 drafted audited financial statements, which will remain a draft until approved by the board, and the other is the compliance report for the Stewardship of Management Operations. That report is an annual review of the policies and procedures that ensure good fiscal management of the health unit.
CLOSED SESSION:
The Finance + Audit Committee report will present a verbal report, and there will be a separate Medical Officer of Health update, both of which will be discussed in-camera because they involve “personal matters about an identifiable individual, including BOH employees and the security of the property of the Board of Health.”
Guelph Politico 