We worked closely with staff from the South East LHIN, as well as physicians and other clinical experts, to design a series of deliberative workbooks that local residents could complete online to have their say.

Here’s an excerpt from a recent press release that looked back on what we achieved.  According to the South East LHIN’s CEO, Paul Huras:

The fact that we heard from 867 participants who took the time to complete a total of 1775 detailed workbooks is a solid indication that this engagement worked very well,” said Huras. “Each of these participants took the time to learn, understand and comment on workplans that were detailed and complex. The process provided a great deal of quantitative and qualitative feedback that has helped our Clinical Leads and their teams to adjust and fine tune these plans,” he added.

We appreciated the opportunity to work with the LHIN and their partners on this project.  From our perspective, they were truly committed to gathering input from their communities and using it to help guide their decision-making.

In fact, you can read the full public report of what we heard during the engagement here.  And here’s a link to the full press release.

In support of LHINs

Recently, some people have questioned the value of LHINs.  These critics say that LHINs are too costly, or take money away from front line care.

From my perspective, the right question about what LHINs do should be framed differently.  Who best understands the health care needs of local communities across Ontario?  Local residents and health system planners, or those in a head office thousands of kilometers away?

We have done work for several LHINs, including Share Your Story, Shape Your Care for which the North West LHIN won the International Association for Public Participation (IAP2)’s Innovation of the Year award for 2009.

We’ve always found LHIN staff to be dedicated, hard-working local residents driven by a desire to coordinate health services in a way that reflects local priorities, needs and values.  We think their work is important and hope they are able to continue building on the progress already made.

To end, a local MPP for the region once told me “When you get the public involved, you get way better results.  When you leave it up to a politician, it takes too much money; it takes too long; and they’ll probably get it wrong!”

- Ellis Westwood -

One of the most interesting innovations is one that you can no longer see.  They purchased a YouTube “home page takeover” ad a few days before Remembrance Day.  This is a special type of video ad in a player right on the primary YouTube homepage for Canadian viewers. (Note – these ads are quite inexpensive relative to their reach).

While the hundreds of thousands of impressions and thousands of clicks are certainly of interest, it is the timing that is important. They didn’t do it on Remembrance Day.  They started to build interest beforehand.  They laid the foundation for Canadians to embrace the day itself.

Veterans Affairs have gotten off to a great start. You know how much we appreciate social media community-building efforts. Let’s hope they keep it up.

Here is a link for you to take a look.  http://www.youtube.com/user/VeteransAffairsCa

Let us know what you think.

Joe

PS – We may have heard some credible rumours that more GoC YouTube channels are to come!  Stay tuned.