Department of Medicine Weekly Roundup - Oct 10

Please see below for the following updates:

• Jonathan Ailon is the inaugural Medical Director, Palliative Care at Unity Health Toronto
• Important update: Change in SMH Family Health Team lab work flow effective Oct 15
• Process for out-of-office notifications physicians
• EPIC-Mobile Apps, playground and on-call processes
• Masking changes at Unity Health effective Oct. 15, 2024
• 2025 Temerty Faculty of Medicine Awards for Excellence in Postgraduate Medical Education

Following a thorough recruitment process, the Palliative Care program is thrilled to share that Dr. Jonathan Ailon is the inaugural Medical Director, Palliative Care at Unity Health Toronto, beginning Oct. 21, 2024. Dr. Ailon has been a palliative care physician at the St. Michael’s for the past 11 years and recently has held the role of interim medical director for palliative care at St. Michael’s and co-chair of the Palliative Care Program Steering Committee.

Dr. Ailon is a highly respected physician and leader among his peers and across the palliative care community. In his time at St. Michael’s, he has built a palliative care ambulatory program, has supported the Learning Essential Approaches to Palliative Care (LEAP) program to build capacity amongst health care professionals, has supported the integration of AI-based tools into practice to flag palliative care patients earlier in their disease trajectory and has supported external reviews and visioning sessions to inform the future of the palliative care program at Unity Health.

Dr. Ailon serves as an advisor to the Ontario Palliative Care Network, is dedicated to future physicians through his work as Co-Program Director for the FRCPC Palliative Care Fellowship, and was recently awarded a Medical Alumni Award from the University of Toronto alma mater, in recognition of his compassion and excellence in teaching.

Dr. Ailon has a demonstrated track record of excellence in clinical care, leadership and academic advancement positioning him well for success as Medical Director for palliative care across the network. Dr. Ailon will provide medical leadership for the coordination of palliative care services across Unity Health, in the collective pursuit of delivering world class palliative care for patients and their families experiencing life limiting illness. 

Please join us in welcoming Dr. Ailon to this important leadership role.

Dear valued St Michael's Specialist Colleagues:

We wanted to inform you of some changes to the SMH Family Health Team (FHT) workflow beginning Tuesday October 15th that may have implications for some of you and some of your patients.

As you may know, the SMH and SJH Family Health Teams are not transitioning to Epic, they are maintaining their separate Practice Solutions (PSS) EMR.  

a. SMH Family Health Team lab sites

Currently 3 sites of the SMH FHT have Unity phlebotomists on-site that draw blood. These labs are not open to the general public, but are generally restricted to patients of the Family Health Team. FHT patients will at times come to these SMH FHT lab sites with requisitions from their Unity Health specialist, which is fine.

Please be aware that as of Tuesday October 15th, blood and other biological samples collected at the FHT sites will be picked up and processed by LifeLabs. If you are aware that your patient will be completing bloodwork you have ordered at one of the FHT sites, you will need to provide them with paper Ministry of Health lab requisitions. Tests ordered on Unity Health requisitions or Epic will not be able to be completed at Family Health Team sites. Any results will be coming back to you from LifeLabs, not Unity labs.

b. CCing SMH Family Health Team physicians/NPs on lab investigations

We also wanted to inform you that once Epic goes live on November 30, any Family Health Team provider that is CCed on lab investigations ordered by another physician at Unity Health will be receiving the results of these investigations by fax. These results will not be sent electronically to the Family Health Team EMR (Practice Solutions) and the Family Health Team physicians/NPs will not be looking in Epic for results. Please be aware that immediate follow-up of any investigation is the responsibility of the ordering physician. 

Please reach out to us if you have any questions.

Curtis Handford and Karen Weyman

Please take a moment to read the following helpful steps/ process when out-of-office.

Thank you very much to Michelle Sholzberg, Mike Scott and their division for providing us with this helpful information.

To minimize issues with relaying of critical laboratory results and other important communication issues when MDs are absent, please follow this specific process when sending your absence alert email when you will be away: 

1. Physicians should send an email to [email protected]  and cc Chearica Peters when they are away, indicating the dates they are away and who the covering physician is.

2. In this email, it would be helpful for physicians to explicitly ask to change their status in spok mobile from “available for page” to “being covered by”. (This is what is supposed to happen, but saying it explicitly will make it more clear for the person on locating receiving end and avoid confusion with requests for changes to the heme-onc call schedules, which are to be done by admins unless they are same-day changes).

3. Physicians are responsible for changing their status back to ‘available for page’ upon their return, as there is no automatic mechanism in locating to do this (even if a return date is specified in the initial email). This notification of return can either be done by sending a new email to locating stating the physician is back and available to be paged, or can be done directly in the Spok Mobile app (under the ‘Status’ heading).

*Email Summary Provided by: Dr. Ashley Verduyn, Vice President Medical Affairs, Providence Healthcare*

EPIC offers two mobile apps: Haiku for smartphones and Canto for iPads. These apps are designed to provide convenient access to essential functions like medication ordering. Unity Health has made both apps easily available to physicians and clinicians—you can download them directly onto your personal devices without any additional security requirements. Download instructions for your reference are attached.

Both Haiku and Canto have received excellent feedback for their user-friendly design and functionality, particularly for order entry and secure messaging when off-site. After go-live, direct order entry by physicians will be the preferred method for off-site coverage. Where possible, please use the app to enter orders yourself. Telephone orders will still be permitted in certain circumstances, such as when driving or if the system is inaccessible.

Once you complete your EPIC training, you’ll be able to access the system from desktops at SMH or remotely through Citrix using the EPIC Hyperspace icon (see below). This is the live system, meaning any preferences or templates you set up now will be retained when the system goes live. However, please note that some functions, such as ordering, are not yet fully operational in the live environment.

To practice key functions like note creation, ordering, and medication reconciliation, We encourage you to use the EPIC Playground after training. The Playground is accessible through Citrix, attached is a tip sheet to guide you.

The Playground icon looks like this:

And Epic Hyperspace icon looks like this:

~~~~~

Mobile Apps Download instructions:

Step 1: Install application

▪ You must first install “Epic Canto” and/or “Epic Haiku” on your personal device from the Apple App Store and/or the Google Play Store.

Step 2: Load configuration

▪ OPTION 1 - If you opened this tip sheet on the device you installed the application, click on the link below. The application will launch and load the configuration.

▪ OPTION 2 – If you opened this tip sheet from another device (workstation) and not on the device you have installed the application, click on the link below. Select the correct tab to display the QR code for the application you downloaded (Epic Canto and/or Epic Haiku).

▪ Pick up your mobile device to scan the QR code.

 https://rp.epic.unityhealth.to/mobile/

COVID-19 is now at a moderate community transmission leading into influenza (viral) season. Based on provincial and local guidance, we are updating our masking requirements at Unity Health. On Tuesday, Oct. 15, 2024 the following changes at Unity Health will come into effect after consultation with our Infection, Prevention and Control (IPAC) and Workplace Health, Safety and Wellness teams.

Note: Long-term care home specific guidelines will be updated separately. A communication will be sent out with details of changes at the Houses of Providence (HOP).

For staff, physicians learners and volunteers

Masking is now required:

• When providing direct care to patients, residents or clients or when within close proximity to patients, residents or clients in inpatient and outpatient areas
  • This includes masking when entering a patient’s room, when assessing or caring for patients in an exam room or when assisting or transporting patients through the facility

Note – in situations where clinicians feel that masking is not in the best interest of the patient, it can be omitted (with the patient’s consent) – for example when communicating key information to patients that are hearing impaired, or when having sensitive end of life discussions.

Masking is optional in the following spaces:

• Public non-clinical areas (e.g. cafeterias, lobbies), or in clinical areas isolated from patients (e.g. nursing stations) or where patient contact is transient (e.g. walking down a hallway in a clinical area)

For visitors

• Visitors will be asked to mask in clinical areas where patients are present, including patient rooms and waiting areas
• Visitors who are feeling unwell should not visit.
• Visitors should not be turned away if unwilling to mask

For patients/clients

• All patients should mask in waiting areas
• Outpatients should mask in clinical areas where other patients are present, including during group therapy
  • Outpatients are not required to mask in exam/assessment rooms
• Inpatients are  not required to mask inside their rooms
• Care should never be denied to patients unable or unwilling to mask

Unity Health is a mask-friendly space and all are welcome to continue masking in all areas. Masks are available at all facility entrances and in clinical areas. Masking requirements are subject to change depending on virus activity in the hospital and community. Updates will become available as needed.

Resources to communicate this change:

• A letter for inpatients
• A script detailing masking information

Masking plays an important role in prevention the transmission of COVID-19, influenza and other respiratory viruses. However, it is not perfect, and is only one of many important strategies to reduce risk.

Other important measures include staff and patient vaccination, hand hygiene, avoiding visiting or coming to work when sick with an acute respiratory infection, as well as infection prevention and control measures such as early recognition of patients with symptoms of a respiratory viral infection, combined with prompt testing, isolation and the use of droplet-contact precautions.

Information about the current masking requirements will be available on Unity Health’s website and updated posters will be posted at hospital entrances. If you have further questions, please contact the Infection Prevention and Control team for your area.

Dear all, please see the attached and message below regarding the 2025 TFOM Awards for Excellence in Postgraduate Medical Education.

Dear Colleagues,

The Temerty Faculty of Medicine Awards for Excellence in Postgraduate Medical Education serve to recognize outstanding contributions of faculty members who teach medical residents and fellows, develop, organize and administer training programs, develop innovative approaches to teaching, research, and evaluation, or serve as mentors and advocates to postgraduate medical trainees. 

Up to four $1,000 awards may be presented annually, and each winner will receive a certificate with the financial prize. In the event of a tie, prize money will be shared equally amongst tied winners. 

Winners will be notified by the end of March and will be recognized at the Temerty Faculty’s Annual Educational Achievement Day in May. 

Applications may be made to two categories of awards:

1. Development/Innovation in Postgraduate Education

(e.g. leadership and organization skills; course/curriculum development, evaluation tools; develop new instructional methods/modules; restructuring of teaching/evaluation component, workshops, CanMEDS roles)

1. Teaching Performance/Mentorship/Advocacy

(e.g. acknowledgement of continuous or long-term excellence in instruction, career counseling, promotion of collegiality, role model, service as Program Director)

Application/nomination guidelines and the checklist are attached. If you have any questions please contact Arlene McKinley at [email protected]. Submission deadline is Friday, January 10, 2025.

I encourage you to participate in this nomination process to ensure that our faculty members are recognized for their innovations and commitment to postgraduate medical education.

Sincerely,