Thank you very much. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen.
I am going to apologize at the front end for my tardiness. A brief will be available that will give full background to my presentation. At the end of the presentation, I will have some English copies, but the translated copies will be made available in the usual fashion. I apologize for not having them available today.
Let me begin by thanking all of you for the opportunity to speak to you today on the theme of chronic disease related to aging. I will particularly take the perspective of the health care provider in my remarks. I might add that this is a perspective that is often overlooked and that is becoming increasingly significant as we re-emphasize patient-centred care.
By way of introduction, my name is Dr. William Shragge. By background, I am a cardiac surgeon, educator, and medical administrator. I am currently CEO of Associated Medical Services. My remarks to you today are on behalf of this organization, which I represent.
Our organization has a long and I'd say proud history of providing health care and being involved with the health care system, particularly in Ontario. Associated Medical Services was founded and incorporated in 1937 by Dr. Jason Hannah as Canada's first physician-sponsored, not-for-profit, prepaid health care organization. When AMS's role as a health care provider ceased with the birth of OHIP and medicare, the Ontario government permitted the corporation to use its remaining reserve fund for charitable purposes; hence was born the new AMS, a philanthropic organization that disburses around one million dollars a year.
The initial focus of AMS was to support scholarly activity in the history of medicine. AMS has also contributed to the advancement of the health and health care of Canadians in the areas of bioethics, end-of-life care, and medical education, particularly in its sponsorship of educating future physicians of Ontario, the so-called EFPO initiative.
The focus of this committee is to study those chronic diseases related to aging. This review is long overdue. This review reflects two overarching themes. First is the demographic reality that will see aged Canadians making up an increasingly significant component of the consumption of health care provider services. Second, the spectrum of those diseases, both chronic and acute, related to aging is growing dramatically as our life spans continue to increase.
Central to this entire conversation is someone we urgently need to revisit, namely the beleaguered health care provider, a health care provider who is beleaguered by a myriad of unrelenting challenges that are growing exponentially. All of this is superimposed on a population that can be incredibly challenging to manage, from the health care provider perspective, and is taking place in a workplace environment that is often very problematic, from the perspective of the aged and their families.
Health care has lost its way. Focused on the path of technical progress, we have failed to notice the increasingly desolate landscape into which we have travelled. It is a landscape of treatments and techniques, assessments and efficiencies, routines and guidelines, and hierarchies and regulations. Patients and their families move through this landscape neither knowing us nor feeling that we know them as individuals with fears and desires as well as signs and symptoms.
With our patients passing by in a blur and our work reduced to a frenzy of tasks, we can be deaf to the calling that brought us to health care, the call to caring. We grope blindly for purpose, while the absences of caring relationships in health care demoralize both us and those who look to us for care.
The “AMS Phoenix Project: A Call to Caring” is based on the premise that health professionals provide the best care when they are able to balance human compassion and technical expertise. This is especially significant in the care environments that characterize the provision of chronic care for the aged, care environments often lacking in the elements essential to the provision of patient-centred care.
AMS will act as a catalyst for change by making strategic investments and working with educators, health professionals, workplaces, and other partners to nurture and sustain education and workplace environments that support this balance, a balance between compassion and technical expertise.
The AMS Phoenix Project seeks to resurrect caring, empathy, and compassion in health care and rebalance human compassion and technical expertise through strategic investments to promote, first, champions for caring relationships; second, creative strategies for teaching and practice that focus on caring; and finally, third, communities of practice, both face-to-face and virtual.
Some of these themes, which the Phoenix Project will explore, were articulated within the just-completed federally funded Future of Medical Education in Canada Project, the so-called FMEC report.
Dr. Dorothy Pringle has been appointed chair of the AMS Phoenix Project advisory committee. A member of the board, Dr. Pringle is an accomplished nursing leader, educator, and researcher. Dr. Brian Hodges has been appointed project lead. Dr. Hodges is an internationally renowned educator and is now the vice-president of education at the University Health Network in Toronto.
The thrust of our initiative, an intense focus on the health care provider, framed around empathy, compassion, and caring in the context of the learning and workplace environments, resonates intensely with the theme of chronic disease in the aged. Again, the focus is around the health care provider. We at AMS, and specifically those involved with the Phoenix Project, very much look forward to working with this Commons committee in moving forward this extremely important agenda.
We again emphasize our focus on the health care provider and the importance of making health care provider issues--within the broader framework of patient-centred care--meaningful parts of your deliberations. The health care provider in any area that you will be discussing remains the common denominator, and the health care provider, we suggest, is the factor that is most often overlooked.
At the end of the day, delivery of care in a balance between compassion, caring, empathy, and technical expertise will be the foundation to all aspects of the issues your committee will be deliberating upon, and this remains the focus of our five-year initiative.
AMS would like to thank the committee for this opportunity to present before you, and as I've said, we look forward to continuing to work with your initiative in any way.