What's New With ICCER?

July 2011

Framework for a Virtual Teaching Continuing Care Centre

The ICCER Steering Committee has finalized the discussion paper "Framework for a Virtual Teaching Continuing Care Centre".

June 2011

IntD 410 Continuing Care Stream

ICCER is working with the Health Sciences Education Commons of the Health Sciences Council to develop a special stream of IntD410: Interprofessional Health Team Development.

IntD 410 is a process learning course intended to provide knowledge, skills and experience in building interprofessional (IP) health care teams comprised of students in various professional programs. Through participation on an interprofessional team of up to 8 students, participants will build their knowledge and skills in the course's four core IP competencies: communication, collaboration, role clarification and reflection. Emphasis is placed on team processes and tasks while recognizing the unique contributions of patients, families and professionals in working collaboratively to maintain health. (Offered jointly by the following faculties: Agricultural, Life and Environmental Sciences; Medicine and Dentistry; Nursing; Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences; Physical Education and Recreation; and Rehabilitation Medicine.) The Continuing Care stream will provide activities and learnings that will help teach students about the continuum of continuing care, and encourage students to look at continuing care as a career option.

The course will be offered starting January 2012. In 2013, it is anticipated that students from health discipline programs at NorQuest College will be able to participate in the IntD410 Continuing Care stream.

Continuing Care Networking Events

ICCER and ACSRC are now in discussions to hold Continuing Care Networking Events with PSIs in other areas of the province, and with First Nations communities in Alberta.

January - May 2011

Continuing Care Networking Events

ICCER is working with the Alberta Centre for Sustainable Rural Communities (ACSRC), Keyano College, Northern Lakes College, and Grande Prairie Regional College to host networking events in Northern Alberta.

The networking events will bring the local PSI, ICCER and its affiliated organizations (including the University of Alberta and NorQuest College), and ACSRC together to discuss issues related to continuing care with local community groups. They will provide an opportunity to identify what continuing care needs are not being met locally, and whether there are issues that the PSIs can address through training & education programs for students and/or practitioners, and through research. PSIs have an important role to play in the sustainability of rural communities through their role in 'home growing' health practitioners of the future and reducing out-migration.

The networking events are part of a larger initiative that ICCER and ACSRC are developing that will include all of the northern Alberta PSIs. The networking events are meant to provide the groundwork for the development of a larger grant application process to the Community Initiatives Program through the Alberta government and potentially to the Federal governments rural and northern communities initiative grant.

Funding from the Alberta Rural Development Network will help support the events.

More information on these events can be found under the Continuing Care Networking Events page.

December 2010

NorQuest College has released the 2009-2010 Applied Research Annual Review. ICCER's evaluation of the NorQuest/Dickinsfield Practical Nurse project is highlighted on pages 24 and 25 of the report.

Effective January 2011, Bethany Care Society will become a member of ICCER. We are very pleased to welcome them onto the ICCER Steering Committee.

September 2010

ICCER is pleased to announce that the Excel Society, a social services society based in Edmonton and Calgary, joined ICCER.

On Thursday, September 2nd ICCER joined NorQuest College's 7th Annual Gary Mar Golf Tournament.

July 2010

ICCER and the Alberta Centre for Sustainable Rural Development receive networking grants through the Alberta Rural Development Network

The Institute for Continuing Care Education and Research (ICCER) and the Alberta Centre for Sustainable Rural Communities (ACSRC) are partnering in a series of networking events funded through the Alberta Rural Development Network (ARDN).

They will be working with Grande Prairie College, Keyano College, and Northern Lakes College to discuss issues related to continuing care with local community groups. The ARDN grants will provide an opportunity to identify what continuing care needs are not being met locally, and whether there are issues that the PSIs can address through training & education programs for students and/or practitioners, and through research. PSIs have an important role to play in the sustainability of rural communities through their role in 'home growing' health practitioners of the future and reducing out-migration.

The networking events will provide both ICCER and the ACSRC with an opportunity to reach out to rural communities. ICCER's vision is to "be a partnership of practitioners, researchers, educators and learners collaborating to provide the best care and quality of life for those served by the continuing care system." Its mission is to enhance the quality of life for those served in the continuing care system by creating a continuum of learning and research, and by ensuring excellence in education for students. These networking events will assist ICCER in reaching out to the larger community and work to identify gaps in the rural regions and to link the rural communities and PSIs with researchers and educators from elsewhere. The networking will offer ACSRC the opportunity to extend its mandate, which includes research, education, knowledge transfer and collaboration with rural communities, on the ground in northern Alberta, and to foster collaboration of faculty from both the University of Alberta and NorQuest College within the broader principals and contexts of social justice, community engagement, deliberative and evidence-based decisionmaking and practice, the social determinants of health and integrated public policy and programming that contributes to the sustainability, resilience and quality of life in rural Albertan communities.

These events will contribute to the expansion and institutionalization of an existing collaboration (ICCER) as well as the development of both a network and broader funding initiative to support continuing care in Northern Alberta. The project speaks directly to the identification of gaps in the training, provision, development and evaluation of continuing care in rural Alberta, as well as drawing from multiple members of the ARDN in order to better implement the mandate of ICCER.

Although planning will begin sometime in the fall of 2010, the actual community networking events will not be held until spring of 2011. Not only does this give the organizers time to prepare, it minimizes risk by avoiding having the participants travel from remote communities in the middle of winter. This should help to ensure greater community representation at the networking events.

June 2010

Affiliated Institute with the University of Alberta

On June 9, 2010, ICCER became an affiliated institute with the University of Alberta.

Agreement signed between the four founding members of ICCER

As of June 30, 2010, the four founding members of ICCER (University of Alberta, NorQuest College, CapitalCare, and Alberta Health Services) formally ratified their affiliation. The agreement defines the governance structure of ICCER, and outlines the responsibilities and obligations of each ICCER member.