The Canadian Healthcare Safety Symposium (Halifax 9)

October 22 to 24, 2009
Le Centre Sheraton Montréal, Montréal, Québec, Canada

Registration is now open! Click here to register.

A provocative forum for leaders to advance safety, cultivate relationships, and shape the future of healthcare.

The Canadian Healthcare Safety Symposium 9 continues the tradition of the Halifax Series of symposia. This event has proven to be Canada's unique gathering of individuals and organizations with a desire to improve healthcare safety and enhance the overall quality of our healthcare system. The Halifax Series helps provide a better understanding of the phenomena of health system hazards, the behaviours of patients and healthcare providers, environmental and organizational factors, and the role of regulators.

Theme: Human Performance and Healthcare Safety

“All (men) are not suited to run risks; the toil and fatigue are great, but nothing is to be had without toil.” Samuel de Champlain (1622)

While much of the healthcare system requires redesign to advance healthcare safety, human performance remains a vitally important factor in this most human of all high hazard endeavours. How workers perceive, think, and perform can make the difference between death and life, suffering and successful treatment, or illness and wellness.

The key areas to be explored include:

Round pegs / square holes – Individual variability and error proneness; personality and performance in the healthcare industry: Can these concepts be used to help us with selection practices in healthcare?
See 1, Do 1, Teach 1 – Cognitive work analysis; a critical review of simulation; the pursuit of expertise: How do we define the job, how do we train, and how to we become the best we can be?
Did you see the latest? – Air Traffic Control, the need for unambiguous communication, and the transition from voice to data link communication; voice loops and overhearing in NASA and the ICU; using an interactive website to exchange information about safety and quality in hospitals: What are the pros and cons of new technology, as applied to information transfer and communication in healthcare?
“What did you say? What did you mean?” – Communicating in teams and working groups; the sounds of silence in communication; translation or interpretation? How do we move from “What did you say? What did you mean?” to “How can we improve healthcare safety?”
But surely I’m competent – Individual, team, and administrative competence: What is it, how do we measure it, and how do we facilitate it?
Tell me a story – How can we better understand patients’ stories by exploring the process of story-telling?

Who Will Attend

Healthcare and legal professionals and leaders with an active interest in patient safety, quality, organizational development and health system improvement will attend the Symposium. Here is a sampling of the delegates you can expect to meet:

Quality leaders
Healthcare organization CEOs and senior staff
Professional association and licensing body representatives
Healthcare professionals from all disciplines
Members of the judicial community
Lawyers, especially those practicing in health law
Medical directors of healthcare organizations and government agencies
Senior government representatives
Academics from medicine, nursing, rehabilitative medicine, laboratory medicine, pharmacy, health and social policy, law, health law, business and other related disciplines
Healthcare educators
Healthcare organization board members

Space is limited. This meeting has traditionally sold-out in advance of the early-bird deadline.

What to Expect at the Symposia

The Halifax Series has evolved into Canada's flagship event in healthcare safety. Participants from previous meetings have consistently remarked about the meeting being innovative, cutting edge, and intellectually challenging.

The meeting is different by design. In developing the early programs, the founders of the Halifax Series sought inspiration within healthcare and in other industries around the world for different ideas, knowledge, skills and attitudes which would present opportunities for the improvement of healthcare safety in Canada. The Halifax Series Organizing Committee has diligently continued this approach.

Halifax Symposium attendees can expect:

A challenging learning opportunity, designed for senior leaders and clinicians in healthcare
A program that allows every registrant to participate in every session, and that contains no profession-specific sessions
Themes that are academic in focus, and that examine issues from a variety of perspectives
Speakers who are selected for their expertise, and not because they represent a discipline, a profession, or an organization
Sessions that explore the safety experiences of other industries
A conference that has limited capacity, so as to preserve the intimacy of the interactions among delegates and speakers

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Organizing Committee

Co-chair: Jan Davies MSc MD FRCPC
Professor, Department of Anesthesia, Faculty of Medicine, University of Calgary

Co-chair: Micheline Ste-Marie MD
Associate Director of Professional Services, Montreal Children's Hospital

Ross Baker PhD
Professor, Health Policy, Management and Evaluation, Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto

Doug Cochrane MD FRCSC FAAP
Chair, British Columbia Patient Safety Task Force, Provincial Health Services Authority

Pat Croskerry MD PhD
Professor, Department of Emergency Medicine, Dalhousie University

Mark Daly RRT MA(Ed)
Patient Safety Coordinator, McGill University Health Centre

Philip Hassen MPH FCCHSE
Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Patient Safety Institute

Rob Robson MSc MDCM FRCPC
Chief Patient Safety Officer, Winnipeg Regional Health Authority

Laurel Taylor
Director of Operations - Ottawa, Canadian Patient Safety Institute

Laurie Thompson BN MN
Executive Director, Manitoba Institute for Patient Safety

Jewel Buksa MBA
President, BUKSA Conference Management and Program Development

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Accreditation Information

Accreditation will be sought from several sources. Information will be available here once accreditation has been received.

The Canadian Healthcare Safety Symposium
BUKSA Conference Management and Program Development
Suite 307, 10328 - 81 Avenue NW, Edmonton, Alberta T6E 1X2 Canada
Phone: +1 (780) 436-0983 ext. 229 Fax: +1 (780) 437-5984 Email: halifax@buksa.com
www.buksa.com/halifax