Navigating the BC Healthcare System , livre ebook

Self-Counsel Press - Connie Jorsvik

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150 pages

English

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Your Simplified Guide to the BC Healthcare System
It has always been important to be an empowered patient or caregiver, but likely never more so than right now. If we are or someone we care about is seriously ill, we have to rely on the healthcare system -- but it is also on life-support and we must know how to do the heavy lifting in our own care.
Healthcare in British Columbia is nothing if not complicated. General practitioners, specialists, waiting lists, residential care, and everything in between seem to all exist independently of anything else. Knowing where to turn can feel like something you need a medical degree for, or at least, it can feel like an art.
This step-by-step guide for those who suddenly find themselves with serious illness or injury in a medical world that moves too fast and seems to speak another language. Whether you are self-advocating, or advocating for a loved one, and if you are facing confusion or hard healthcare choices in British Columbia, this guide is for you.

Sujets

Health Care Delivery

Health Care Issues

Health

Fitness

Informations

Publié par	Self-Counsel Press
Date de parution	15 juin 2023
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781770405462
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	1 Mo

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0650€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

Navigating the BC Healthcare System
Connie Jorsvik
Self-Counsel Press (a division of) International Self-Counsel Press Ltd. USA Canada

Copyright © 2023

International Self-Counsel Press All rights reserved.
Contents

Cover

Title Page

Introduction

CHAPTER 1: Understanding the Canadian and BC Healthcare System

1. Federal Role and the Canada Health Act

2. Role of the Provinces and Territories

3. Provincial Primary and Secondary Healthcare Services

4. BC Health Authorities and Services

5. Regional Health Authorities

6. Understanding Who’s Who when Talking about Your “General Practitioner,” “Family Practitioner,” and “Primary Care Practitioner” (and the Rest)

CHAPTER 2: Empowered Patients and Care Partners

1. Who Is an Empowered Patient?

2. Why Women Particularly Need to Plan Ahead for Serious Illness

3. The Power of Empowered Care Partners

4. Build Your Team

5. When to Hire a Professional Healthcare Navigator-Advocate

CHAPTER 3: Empowered Communication

1. Effective Healthcare Communication

2. The Power of the Notebook

3. Miscommunication and Missed Communication

4. Effective Communication at Doctor’s Appointments

5. Plan for All Health Appointments

6. Get through Appointments Logically

7. Communication to Prevent Common Errors

8. When You Hit Communication Walls

9. Communicating with Dismissive, Arrogant, or Bad Doctors

CHAPTER 4: Special Considerations for Care Partners and Caregivers

1. Becoming a Care Partner or Family Caregiver Can Mean Putting Your Own Life on Hold

2. What to Do When Suddenly Faced with Becoming a Caregiver

CHAPTER 5: HealthCare Planning Is for Right Now!

Sample 1: Medical Summary for Jane Smith

1. Document Your Medical and Surgical History

Sample 2: ICE Document

2. Understand Your Present

3. Put Your Healthcare Summary Together

CHAPTER 6: Advance Care Planning and Related Documents

1. Understanding Advance Care Planning

2. Steps in Advance Care Planning

3. Advance Care Planning Documents

4. The Importance of Advance Care Planning and Cognitive Decline or Dementia

5. Who Will Speak for You: Understanding Substitute Decision Makers

CHAPTER 7: Determine Values, Beliefs, and Preferences for Future Care

1. Understanding the Differences between Advance Directives, Living Wills, and Letters of Wishes

2. Part One: Determine Your Values and Beliefs

Questionnaire 1: Determine Your Values and Beliefs

Questionnaire 2: Determine Your Fears and Concerns

Questionnaire 3: Imagine the Last Days of Your Life

3. Begin to Write Your Letter of Wishes

Sample 3: Letter of Wishes

CHAPTER 8: Understanding Healthcare Benefits and Insurance

1. Government Benefits: Medical Services Plan (MSP)

2. BC PharmaCare

3. Extended Benefits and Disability Insurance

4. Private Travel Insurance

CHAPTER 9: Care and Services in the Community (or How to Get a Doctor’s Care)

1. Primary Care and Other Practitioners

2. Physician Specialists

3. Make It Count When You Do Get In

CHAPTER 10: Home Care

1. Public-Subsidized and Private-Pay Home Care

2. Public-Subsidized Home Care

3. Private-Pay Home Care

Questionnaire 4: Questions to Ask Home-Care Agencies

CHAPTER 11: Understand and Navigate Care in Emergency Departments, Hospitals, and at BC Cancer Agency

1. Get the Care You Need in the Emergency Department

Sample 5: Packing List

2. Understand Care in Hospital Stays

3. Discharge Planning

4. Home-Care Planning from Hospital

5. Understand and Navigate the BC Cancer Agency (and Affiliate Programs)

CHAPTER 12: Assisted Living and Residential Care

1. Understand the Continuum of Care

2. Care Costs: Publicly Subsidized versus Private-Pay

3. Understanding Publicly Subsidized Assisted Living and Long-Term Care

4. Understanding Private-Pay Assisted Living and Long-Term Care

CHAPTER 13: Palliative Care and Hospice: In the Community and In-Facility

1. Definitions

2. Public Palliative Care at Home and in the Community

3. Private-Pay Palliative and Hospice Home Care

4. What Should Be Considered If You Want to Die at Home

5. Palliative Care in Hospital

6. In-Facility Hospice

7. Advance Care Planning for Serious Illness and End of Life

8. Understanding Advance Care Planning Documents for End of Life

CHAPTER 14: Choice at the End of Life

1. End-of-Life Choice in Canada

2. When to Think about Your Choices for End Of-Life

3. A Deeper Look at Choice at End of Life

4. Put Your Request for Future Withdrawal of Care or Treatment in Writing

5. End-of-Life Doulas

CHAPTER 15: Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD)

1. If You Need Immediate Assistance

2. What is Medical Assistance in Dying?

3. Who Is Eligible for MAiD in Canada?

4. Procedural Safeguards

5. MAiD and Mental Capacity

6. Two Streams for Assessment and Approval for MAiD

7. Practical Considerations for MAiD

8. MAiD Access Issues

9. MAiD and Palliative Care

10. Assessors and Providers

11. Support

CHAPTER 16: Elder Abuse

1. At Home, in Hospitals, and in Residential Care

2. For Immediate Help for Any Form of Suspected Abuse (of Any Kind: Physical, Sexual, Emotional, or Financial)

3. Staggering Rise in Senior and Elder Abuse

4. Physical Assault while in Facility or Hospital Care

CHAPTER 17: How to Make a Complaint about Healthcare in British Columbia

1. Think and Act According to the Level of Threat

2. When Complaints Should Be Initiated

3. Basic Guidelines for an Ongoing Complaint in Hospital or Facility

4. Making a Formal Complaint

5. Where to Go

APPENDIX 1: Glossary of Terms Used in Resuscitation, Critical Care, and End of Life

APPENDIX 2: Understanding the Expected Death in the Home (EDitH) Form

APPENDIX 3: No CPR” Form and Medical Alert Bracelet Form

Download Kit

Acknowledgements

Dedication

About the Author

Notice to Readers

Self-Counsel Press thanks you for purchasing this ebook.
Introduction

Optimism isn’t a belief that things will automatically get better; it’s a conviction that we can make things better.
— Melinda Gates
My hope is this book helps educate and empower all British Columbians to ask for the health care they need and deserve. While it will help guide all patients and their loved ones, we don’t specifically address the even more complex mental health system. We hope to add resources for those with mental illness in future revisions.
This book only covers navigating government-funded systems, and is a constant work in progress. I learn more every day — and a lot comes from my clients’ and readership’s knowledge and questions. If I’ve missed something important, please send me a note at Connie@PatientPathways.ca.
There are a lot of wonderful nonprofit, not-for-profit, and for-profit health professionals and organizations in BC, Canada, and throughout the world, doing incredible, innovative work to improve health and lives — information that seems to take years to be brought into conventional medicine. It would take volumes of books to bring these to you. It is my goal to spotlight some of these businesses in future works.
Our healthcare system was teetering on the edge of crisis in normal times and the COVID-19 pandemic tipped it over the edge. There are long-standing systemic issues, largely due to a chronic lack of funding caught in-step with a rapidly aging population. Financial constraints and lack of personnel have greatly impacted bedside care, home care, and residential care.
Our healthcare system is complex, fragmented, and siloed. It is system-centered and not patient-centered. See Figure 1.

Each arrow in this diagram signifies the transition of care from one silo to another and this is where communication error is high, or communication completely fails.
Each of the bubbles signifies only the most major component of each fragment — and there are dozens of subsections within each. There are also silos within each of the bubbles, and too often, healthcare teams fail to talk to each other.
You and your loved one or care partner must ensure your own safe passage from one point of care to another.
It has always been important to be an empowered patient but likely never more so than right now. If we are seriously ill, we have to rely on the healthcare system, but it is also on life support. In order to get the care you need, you must be prepared, informed, and do the heavy lifting in your own care.

Be proactive! Be assertive! And follow up, follow up, and then follow up some more!
1. Definitions
Healthcare planning is for right now: Doing a little bit of homework now will ensure that your vital health history is delivered at all points of care, including in emergency situations. This will reduce errors due to missed information, especially regarding allergies and medications.
Advance care planning is for your future: It means thinking about your values and beliefs as they apply to your health and then planning ahead for a time when you are not able to make decisions for yourself.
2. Why We’re Reluctant to Do the Work of Crisis Prevention
If you’re procrastinating in putting your healthcare and advance care planning in place, this is a good time to dig a little deeper into your own thoughts about why you are putting it off, if, indeed, you have.
None of us wants to look at the possibility of a crisis of any sort until we’re up to our ears in it. It’s just the way we’re built.

Our brains are generally structured for optimism bias: Also called the illusion of invulnerability, or a personal fable.
Before we go any further, consider doing a little exercise about crises over the last few years and how they affected you:
• Did you t