11 Essential together: a pan-Canadian program for the safe re-integration of essential care partners
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Introduction Fear of transmission throughout the Covid-19 pandemic resulted in policy changes that prohibited caregivers from entering facilities and partnering in the care of patients and residents.1 2 ‘Essential Together’ is a pan-Canadian program that aims to support health and care institutions to safely welcome and support essential care partners in care. Methods The Essential Together program was developed using a multi-phased approach, initiated through active listening during multiple pan-Canadian discussions that highlighted issues of restrictive visiting policies, particularly early in the pandemic. An innovative policy lab approach was conducted with key stakeholders who develop, implement, and are impacted by policy including patients and caregivers. Co-developed policy guidance for caregiver presence includes 7 key elements. Essential Together targets different audiences to move policy into action, with wrap-around supports and resources for health and care leaders across Canada to share learnings that balance the risks of Covid-19 with patient- and family-centred practices and policies. Results Through regular provincial/territorial policy scans across Canada, we note that policy language has shifted, differentiating the role of ‘visitor’ from ‘essential care partner’. The valued role of an essential care partner forms the basis of policies that enable their safe presence. Surveys of healthcare organizations across Canada demonstrated a sharp drop in open family presence policies from 73% pre-pandemic (Jan 2020), with most hospitals suspending visitation with a few notable exceptions (e.g. end of life, pediatrics) (March 2020). By October 2020 and ongoing, most facilities have slowly noted essential care partner policies, but with ongoing limitations to numbers and hours. Discussion Essential Together is a pan-Canadian program that has co-developed policies and practices to enable the safe reintegration of essential care partners.3–5 Moving into pandemic recovery and resilience, patient and caregiver engagement is key to enable a more balanced approach that supports partnership in care at all times. References Fancott C, et al. Advancing family presence policies and practices in Canadian healthcare. Healthcare Quarterly 2021;24(1):14–21. Advancing Family Presence Policies and Practices in the Canadian Healt (longwoods.com) Fancott C, MacDonald T, Neudorf K, Keresteci M. Caregivers at the heart of re-imagined long-term care delivery in Canada. Healthcare Papers 2021;20(1):66–77. Caregivers at the Heart of Re-Imagined Long-Term Care Delivery in Cana (longwoods.com) Healthcare Excellence Canada. (2020). Policy Guidance for the reintegration of caregivers as essential care partners. policy Guidance for them Reintegration of Caregivers as Essential Care Partners (healthcareexcellence.ca) Healthcare Excellence Canada. (2020). Evidence brief: Caregivers as essential care partners. evidence-brief-en.pdf (cfhi-fcass.ca) Healthcare Excellence Canada. (2021). Scan of Provincial and Territorial Government Guidance for Essential Care Partner Presence and Visitor Policies. Scan of Provincial and Territorial Government Guidance for Essential Care Partner Presence and Visitor Policies (healthcareexcellence.ca)
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.009 | 0.010 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.013 | 0.003 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.003 | 0.002 |
| Open science | 0.004 | 0.011 |
| Research integrity | 0.002 | 0.004 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.014 | 0.001 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".