Introduction – Under construction
In my everyday I have the immense opportunity to engage in a variety of care giver roles, participate in multiple healthcare delivery workflows and collaborate with multidisciplinary teams that strive to enhance patient care experiences at every level of service delivery. I am comfortable with my various roles; I am confident with these workflows, and I am proud of my immediate inter-professional connections. It was not until embarking on my Master of Health Studies (MHST) first course, MHST 601 that I would be challenged to academically push myself out of this professional comfort zone and embrace the vulnerability required to advance.
Inter-professional Connectedness
My first learning activity was to explore inter-professional connectedness by way of understanding my own professional identity and this allowed me to audit my digital and social media presence. My professional identity was well established in person, but not online and as I worked through the course content, I recognized a seemingly unconscious bias that believed the internet was not an appropriate medium for professional interaction. It was while collecting resources for my first assignment, I focused on curating information that would take exception to this bias. I appreciated the article “Professionalism in the Digital Age” (2011) as it outlined how online social networks, blogs, and media sites for personal and professional reasons should be preserved, a proactive approach is recommended that includes actively managing one's online presence and making informed choices about disclosure (para. 2). The idea that the content could be and should be professionally managed helped to expand my perception. I have since actively enhanced my professional identity to include a digital presence that is reflective of my professional values, offers an expanded opportunity for inter-professional connectivity and showcases curated content that is meaningful to my practice.
Content Curation
Curation of content was another foundational skill that I was not comprehending. I understood that you curated art and music, but I struggled with the concept in relation to information acquisition. If I required information I searched until the content met my need, there was no replicated workflow as I had no process for collecting and synthesizing reference materials. But I recognized the need to establish a consistent way to collect data, efficiently synthesize the information and store it in a useful way. Within the course content I had the opportunity to read, Digital Content Curation: More Important Than Ever! (2016, August 2) and it was this infographic that simplified curation for me:
I continue to use this process for all my content curation and find that the simplicity reinforces consistency for me. Having now established a student routine that incorporated forum communications, blog creation and twitter hashtags my confidence was growing to be able to explore areas of interest within the learning outcomes.
Federal and Provincial Health Systems in Canada
Working within the healthcare setting, I am aware of the complex and complimentary federal and provincial health systems in Canada. But it was not until the second unit where I was challenged to suggest ways of modernizing the Canada Health Act that the impact of these dueling systems became clearer. I was thoughtful with my suggested updates as I needed to ensure that the information was reflective of the current pressures imposed on health systems today including privatization, the demand for service accessibility and the comparison of the change in population growth (1984 vs 2021).
Health of Canadians – Understanding health and the determinants of health
The search for a comprehensive definition of health in unit three served as a significant challenge and when compounded with the impact of the social determinants of health I needed to find context. The Government of Canada explained that within the Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion affirms social, economic and environmental aspects of ‘health’. This important Canadian document states that, in order to be healthy, “an individual or group must be able to identify and to realize aspirations, to satisfy needs, and to change or cope with the environment”. In this way, health is seen as a resource or an asset that helps us lead our everyday lives. Health is seen as a positive concept that emphasizes social and personal resources, as well as physical capacities (2021). This is where I started to shift my focal point towards the complexity of discharge planning for patients experiencing homelessness.
Multilevel Approaches to Understanding Health – Beyond the individual
Applying a framework in unit four assisted in my understanding the issues and gaps when discharging planning for patients experiencing homelessness as it organized my thoughts, formatted my questions throughout unit four, and supported thoughtful creativity. I relied again on the simplistic approach when I selected the National Health Services model (2021) as the collaborative working model demonstrated flexibility and cohesion:
Chronic Disease Prevention and Management
Homelessness can be chronic; it can be prevented, and it can be managed. I understand that a patient’s experiencing homelessness is not a disease, however as I worked through learning activities of unit five, I could conceptualize how homelessness could be included as a comorbidity. The lack of housing stability imposing significant risk to health and can create barriers to accessing healthcare. The County of Santa Clara agrees and has implemented this strategy through their housing ready community tool kit (2021):
Vulnerable Populations
Experiencing homelessness is a state of vulnerability. Homeless hub defines homelessness as the situation of an individual, family, or community without stable, safe, permanent, appropriate housing, or the immediate prospect means and ability of acquiring it (2021). The unit six learning activities promoted the collaboration of peers, and I had the significant opportunity to work with a classmate from the York Region. York being of similar geographic size to my rural Alberta comparator we were able to demonstrate divergences of the two provinces including provincial strategies posed to serve the vulnerable homeless population better and break the cycle of homelessness (2016):
Conclusion – Future direction leads home
Within MHST 601 there has been significant opportunity to explore each concept through a multifaceted approach that would build upon the previous learning outcomes. It is interesting for me to reflect on my experience of working through the MHST 601 learning activities as I can now draw the parallel connections between how the course content was preparing me for each new challenge and developing my ability to tangibly apply the course concepts in areas of interest that are meaningful to my professional practice. I did not anticipate my health area of interest for MHST 601 would focus on discharge planning for patient experiencing homelessness and as the course has progressed my understanding in this area of interest is refining to a more conceptual recognition that home is foundational for health.
References
County of Santa Clara. (2021). Housing ready community’s: Tool kit. Retrieved November 30, 2021. From, strategies.jpg (1701×690) (sccgov.org)
Digital Content Curation: More Important Than Ever! (2016, August 2). Retrieved November 9, 2017, from
Government of Canada (2021). Health Promotion: What is health. Retrieved December 1, 2021, from What is health? - Canada.ca
Homeless Hub. (2021). What is Homelessness: Definition. Retrieved December 1, 2021, from What is Homelessness | The Homeless Hub
National Health Services. (2021). Population health framework for healthcare providers. Retrieved October 20, 2021, from
Professionalism in the Digital Age. (April, 2011). Annals of Internal Medicine. Retrieved September 28, 2021, from
United States Interagency Council on Homelessness. (2016). Cycle of chronic homelessness. Retrieved October 22, 2021, from Cycle-of-chronic-homelessness.png (1438×847) (usich.gov)
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