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Guest Post: Learn where innovative healthcare is happening at Innovation to Application 2017
Why should pharmacy professional’s care about e-health technologies, and what can you learn at UBC’s Innovation to Application 2017?
Pharmacy professionals are a humble bunch. All too often those of us who are doing the most innovative things may not have the time, opportunity, or desire to spread the word about what we’re doing and how we’re doing it.
While other conferences typically request abstracts or talk submissions, Innovation to Application (I2A) was started in 2016 with the goal of highlighting projects and practices where innovative healthcare is happening today. The conference is focused on seeking out innovative healthcare currently being practiced or researched, and bringing together stakeholders including practitioners, researchers, patients, and policy makers to hear about it. By showcasing these experiences and focusing on making connections, I2A events increase awareness, accessibility and impact on patient outcomes through increased diffusion.
Our healthcare system has been transforming to address the needs of the aging population and rising healthcare costs. Key initiatives in these transformations have enabled each health profession to practice to the fullest extent of their capabilities, invested in e-innovations to support healthcare professionals, and empowered patients as partners in their evidence-based individualized care. Point-of-care testing services for various diseases have become available in several pharmacies around Lower Mainland, and expanded pharmacists’ scope of practice has allowed us to take on more substantial roles in managing chronic diseases. But how can we, as pharmacy professionals, leverage these innovations and scale-up in a cost-effective manner in order to have a clinical and economic impact on the healthcare system and our patient’s lives?
This is what we asked ourselves when planning our event this year. The speakers we have sought out will speak to how we can put the pieces in place to move healthcare forward. In order to do that, we need to look beyond the priorities of our profession and think about the greater implications in terms of impact on patients, policy, and business.
This is how we chose the key themes of I2A 2017, which are:
- Partnering with patients to create a clinical research environment
- The impact of big data & genomics on patients, privacy, and practice
- Legislation of innovation and how healthcare policy decisions are made
- The business of healthcare, from start up to scale up
Many of us have heard of Senate Bill S-201, Canada’s Genetic Non-Discrimination Act that passed the Senate in April 2016 and the House of Commons in March 2017. In our Keynote Address, we will hear from Retired Senator Honourable James S. Cowan, who introduced that bill and worked tirelessly to get it into law. As our pharmacy professionals and healthcare looks to improve the health of our patients with genomics, this Act puts in place protections that will allow us to deliver on that promise. Yet getting this Bill passed took years of effort and passion, something we can all learn from as we try to move our own ideas forward.
Innovation to Application only happened due to a colleague identifying our mutual interests and suggesting we collaborate. Even though we worked in the same building, with the same colleagues, with the same community pharmacies, our paths hadn’t crossed. The discussion that followed sparked the idea to try and facilitate the same type of connections… but on a much larger scale.
After a successful inaugural event 2016, Innovation to Application 2017 is expected to be bigger and better, and even more meaningful to pharmacy professionals! It is co-organized by Nicole Tsao, Mark Kunzli, and the Pharmacy Undergraduate Society.
Register to attend UBC’s Innovation Application on Saturday April 29, 2017 before spots run out!
Join I2A 2017 for a full day of engaging accredited learning. The conference will be held at the UBC Life Sciences Centre.
For more information and to register visit innovationtoapplication.com.
Join into the conversation with #I2A2017.
Nicole Tsao, BSc (Pharm), MSc (Pharm), RPh, PhD Student
Nicole Tsao is a pharmacist currently completing her PhD degree at the Collaboration for Outcomes Research and Evaluation (CORE), Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of British Columbia. She completed her MSc in pharmaceutical outcomes and policy, with a focus in pharmacoeconomics, and her current PhD research is focused in pharmacoepidemiology and the risk of adverse outcomes of biologic medications.
Nicole has much interest and expertise in conducting research in community pharmacies in BC. Her current research interests include investigating the use of eHealth technology to support pharmacy practice, monitor medication adherence and safety, and facilitate interdisciplinary healthcare delivery. She is a recent recipient of an Rx & D award for interdisciplinary health research, and she is the Principal Investigator of a Canadian Institutes of Health Research grant for knowledge dissemination of eHealth in pharmacy practice.
Mark Kunzli, BSc (Pharm), Executive MBA, RPh
Mark Kunzli is a Research Associate & Project Manager in the UBC Dept of Family Practice, a practicing pharmacist, and a business consultant. While pursuing his Executive MBA in Healthcare Management at the Sauder School of Business, Mark worked with a team in the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences to establish Genomics and Individualized Therapy as a key research initiative, which was realized with the establishment of the UBC Sequencing Centre at the Faculty.
Mark is passionate about equipping his fellow healthcare practitioners with the ability to use patient genomics to make medication use safer and more effective. He was Co-Investigator and Project Manager for the "Genomics for Precision Drug Therapy in Community Pharmacy" research project, which collaborated with community pharmacists throughout BC to collect patient samples for exome sequencing and pharmacogenomic analysis. Mark currently holds a research appointment in the Dept of Family Practice, where he is participating in a qualitative research study with Dr. David Snadden, Rural Doctors' UBC Chair in Rural Health, looking at factors influencing the rural healthcare ecosystem. Mark also works with Dr. Bob Stowe in UBC Neuropsychiatry as Project Manager for the "Metabolic and Genetic Explorations in Refractory Schizophrenia (MAGERS)" study of treatment-resistant/refractory psychosis.
- Health Tech, Continuing Education, Technology, Innovation, Interdisciplinary Relationships, Guest Post, UBC
