Doctor Dong was introduced to the club by Ron Dunseith.
When Kathryn started her residency nine years ago, she volunteered in some of Edmonton’s inner city communities and realized that the medical profession needed to do more to help people dealing with addictions, mental health issues, and unstable housing or poverty. When you’re caring for patients from Edmonton’s inner city, it requires a different approach and a different mindset.
When someone arrives at the Emergency Department with a broken arm, we will obviously do our best to help them. But what if they broke their arm because of addiction or homelessness? Helping someone deal with the bigger issues that caused their broken arm will ultimately help them more than just the fracture treatment.
The challenge is that there currently is a "revolving door" syndrome that sees many patients come back to the Royal Alex’s Emergency Department time and time again. We want to stop that revolving door.
That is what the Inner City Health and Wellness Program is all about. Their goal is that when they knock at the emergency room door, the doctors will able to show them to the proper door for their needs – to offer help with addictions, mental health conditions, brain injuries, or unstable housing.
By engaging a different approach to these high risk patients, They will have the opportunity to provide them with the services that they really need. By doing things differently, they will have an opportunity to find better, long-term solutions to these very significant health issues.
First and foremost, the Inner City Health and Wellness Program will improve the health of our patients. It is also an essential next step in curbing the rising healthcare costs in Alberta. There are many partners and stakeholders in this program, including the Boyle McCauley Health Centre, the Brain Care Centre, and a variety of departments and programs at the Royal Alex and across the spectrum of Alberta Health Services. All of these organizations are committed and enthusiastic about the Inner City Health and Wellness Program, as it promises to be a new solution to an old problem.
The Inner City health and Wellness Team will:
- Identify patients who are at a socially high risk for poor health outcomes;
- Provide evidence-based addictions management in both the emergency room and impatient settings;
- Use hospitalization as an opportunity to improve the patient's social determinants of health, including issues of housing, employment, food security and development of a social safety net;
- maximize communication and collaboration between the Royal Alexandra hospital, the patient's primary healthcare provider, and other community-based care teams;
- Assist the patient in finding a primary healthcare provider to ensure long term follow up for chronic conditions;
- Educate all care providers in patient-centred care, poverty and addictions management;
- Develop and maintain an internationally renowned research program in inner city health issues;
- Educate patients about their health conditions and how to stay healthy.
Now is the time to do things differently in order to improve the health of our inner city residents in a meaningful way.
Dr. Dong and Andrew Otway (President & CEO of the Royal Alexandra Hospital Foundation) were thanked by Leslie Cleary.
Dr. Kathryn Dong, 
