Policy Database

Doctors of BC Position: Dementia impacts a significant number of British Columbians and this impact is expected to increase with an aging population. Doctors of BC advocates for an increased focus on prevention, and seeks to improve the lived experience of people with dementia through educating and training, increasing one-on-one care in long-term care, and promoting a palliative approach to care.

Doctors of BC Position: Doctors and other health care providers play a critical role when disasters strike. Doctors of BC recommends raising physician awareness of training and leadership opportunities, promoting practical resources to prepare physicians for emergencies, and by promoting CME training on emergency preparedness planning. To better incorporate the health system in emergency preparedness planning, a Health Emergency Framework should be developed.

Doctors of BC Position: Doctors of BC recommends that the BC Ministry of Health, in collaboration with health authorities and other stakeholders, develop a Provincial Chronic Pain Strategy outlining an equitable, comprehensive, and coordinated pain management system designed to support timely access to quality multidisciplinary Chronic Pain services in BC.

Doctors of BC Position: Doctors of BC believes there is an opportunity to learn from physician experience with quality improvement efforts in order to build sustained, system-level improvement for health care in British Columbia. Improving BC’s health system requires commitment to a common vision, leadership by key stakeholders, alignment of performance measures, investment in required technology and human resources, and enhanced support for innovation and expansion of successful quality improvement initiatives.

Doctors of BC Position: Doctors of BC recommends that the BC Government formally recognize caregivers as a key partner in health care delivery and require the consideration of caregiver needs in health care and social service planning and provision. In addition, Doctors of BC identifies other potential areas for enhanced caregiver support including access to respite care, patient/system navigation, and financial assistance programs.

A toolkit that provides the steps for organizing your practice to support family caregivers.
Step 1: Identify Caregivers.
Step 2: Involve Caregivers in Patient Care
Step 3: Monitor Health of Caregivers
Step 4: Provide Information and Support to Caregivers

Doctors of BC Position: In response to the Ministry of Health’s paper: Enabling Effective, Quality Population and Patient-Centred Care: A Provincial Strategy for Health Information Management and Technology, Doctors of BC carried out extensive consultation with its members. Two themes emerged from the consultation, it’s important to prioritize health information exchange and patient-centred care must come after the foundations for IM/IT are laid.

Doctors of BC Position: Precision medicine refers to the use of an individual’s genomic and epigenetic information, including individual patterns of disease, in order to provide targeted treatment that is tailored to an individual’s genetic profile. To maximize the benefits of precision medicine and incorporate it into clinical care, Doctors of BC supports developing patient-focused policy and legislation, creating patient and provider education, and evaluation of precision medicine interventions. Expanded use of precision medicine needs to be guided by appropriate informed consent and privacy legislation.

Doctors of BC Position: In order to address the unique challenges related to youth mental health Doctors of BC recommends increasing awareness of available youth-related mental health resources, involving family physicians in helping youth with mental health concerns, and collaboration by key stakeholders to improve capacity and accessibility of mental health services.