On the
role of GIIC
facilitators
Congratulations
on being nominated to the role of GiiC facilitator within your
organization.
Across the province
the network of GIIC facilitators will comprise health professionals
from many
backgrounds. It will be an interprofessional team itself. So far, we
have had
physicians, advanced practice nurses, nurses, social workers, and
occupational
therapists nominated to represent their Family Health Team or
The key selection criteria we suggested for
recommending FHT/CHC facilitators were personal interest, breadth of
clinical
experience, acceptance by your colleagues and, perhaps ideally, the
qualities
of an informal opinion leader. Informal opinion leaders are individuals
to whom
others often turn for advice – they like answering questions, seem to
stay up
to date on a wide range of topics and communicate in a down to earth
and
humanitarian way. So congratulations once again, you must be a very
special
health professional.
We will provide you with 16 hours of training with our team of GiiC
consultants
and expert local faculty. Each of you will have a regional GiiC
consultant who
will support you when you return to your organization for a period of
3-4
months and, we hope, longer. We will invite you to a follow-up meeting
to share
your experiences with us and as well, we will invite you to the annual
meetings
of the staff of the Regional Geriatric Programs of Ontario, held in
We will provide you with a GiiC toolkit in
both hard copy and electronic versions. The toolkit will provide a
range of
tools on 18 dimensions of geriatrics and on interprofessional practice
and
interorganizational collaboration. For each dimension there are Quick
Facts,
Practice Aids, Practice Algorithms, Quizzes, Patient Handouts, Teaching
Case
Studies, Slide Materials and Reference materials, designed to help you
in the
facilitator role. The GiiC facilitator website is available for you at http://giic.rgps.on.ca
. It is a secure resource and once you have opened a membership, you
can download
the GiiC resources, discuss issues with each other and with your GiiC
consultant.
But what specifically is required of you . . . ?
We know that there are no two FHTs or CHCs
the same and that each organization responds to the needs of its frail
seniors
in diverse ways. Similarly, we anticipate that there will be a range of
opportunities
for you to implement GiiC processes in your organization. Some of you
are
working in organizations that want to introduce big changes in the care
of
frail seniors, while many of you will be working in organizations that
are
already going through significant developmental change. For you, GiiC
might
lead you to be able to find the right tool to better serve one of your
teams
seniors. Whether big or small, we will consider each instance a
significant
success. We know that big things often come from small beginnings and
that it
is hard to tell ahead of time which small beginning that might be.
We will be evaluating the project and part of
the evaluation, having your team complete a perceptions of teamwork
survey and network
analyses of your team and its interorganizational collaborations, will
itself
be an intervention to help your team in these areas. We call this
approach to
measuring and teaching ‘edumetrics’.
With all of this in mind your GiiC facilitation might include some or
all of
the following activities:
Clinical geriatrics activities
Informal opinion
leadership on geriatrics issues
Periodic reviews of geriatric practices
Coaching of clinical knowledge to practice
activities
Liaison with formal geriatrics experts
Able to recommend context specific assessment
tools
Inter-professional
practice activities
Annual survey of team member perceptions of the team
Coordination and facilitation of quarterly team process meetings
Facilitate reflection on issues of team performance
Facilitate teamwork problem solving
Coordination of inter-professional mentoring for new staff
Inter-organizational
collaboration activities
Annual inter-organizational network analysis and expectation surveys
Identification of inter-organizational boundary management functions
Facilitation of annual and ad hoc meetings of the inter-organizational
network
Network feedback process analyses for quality improvement initiatives
Problem solving inter-organizational issues
and concerns
But most of all keep in mind, that we are very grateful for your interest in our project. We will work hard to help you and for us success can come in both large and small initiatives.