This spring, Mount Sinai Hospital’s Sabrina Gaon, Manager, Interprofessional Allied Health Social Work and Clinical Nutrition and Dr. Sarah Kawaguchi, palliative care physician presented their poster Improving interdisciplinary palliative care transitions at Mount Sinai Hospital at the Canadian Association of Psychosocial Oncology conference where they received the Canadian Virtual Hospice Award in Support of Palliative Care – Excellence in Psychosocial Oncology for their work.
The poster was based on the tours of local palliative care services the team did this winter. “Our goal was to create a practical team building, informative, collaborative experience for social workers, nurses, and doctors working with patients in Sinai Health,” said Sabrina. “We wanted to improve transitions for our patients and families and also provide a forum for building better working relationships amongst the team.”
From these tours they created a database of information and photos about all the units visited so that they can refer to details about each location and provide patients and families with specific information as they select a palliative care unit. The tours were supported by a generous donation from the Wilkins family in memory of John Wilkins.
They plan to use their prize money to fund the next set of tours and will look at other Palliative Care Units or hospices they have not visited, as well as some oncology support programs in the community such as Wellspring.