FP Lead: Dr. Sujatha Nilavar

 

In April of 2024, the Surrey-North Delta Division of Family Practice showcased eight health system enhancement initiatives that we and our partners have been undertaking in our community. These are the stories behind the storyboards.  

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The 2021 “western heat dome” was a deadly lesson: from June 5 to July 1, as temperatures reached record highs, 619 people died in BC from heat-related illness, making this the deadliest weather even in Canada to date. 

In Surrey-North Delta, this event, along with other emergencies happening around the same time, sent a clear message to Physician leaders and Community and Health Partners: we needed a more coordinated approach to handling extreme weather events and other community-wide emergencies.  

Building on the success of a groundbreaking Shared Care event that brought together Emergency Department Physicians and Family Physicians in SND under the banner of the “4 Cs: Collaboration, Connection, Collegiality and Care”, the same group began to explore what could be achieved when we work together to address emergencies such as extreme weather events. 

Before and during the summer of 2023, this group focused their efforts on extreme heat to avoid a repeat of what happened in 2021. Working together, the group supported community readiness with a well-attended learning session supporting FPs to proactively address heat-related illness, as well as educational materials for the general public.  

As this framework of collective action is developed, we are learning from each impactful community event how to respond more effectively and proactively. We believe this collaborative approach will lead to greater confidence and trust in the system for patients and a greater sense of support and inclusion for Physicians and community partners as each group’s unique knowledge and skillset are integrated into the framework.  

April Bonise, the 4Cs project manager, shares her insights into this work below. 

--> Want to learn more? See our storyboard HERE.  

 

What have been the highlights of working on this project? 

A significant highlight has been connecting to our community partners who are supporting similar work and learning how we can work together to support patients.  It was through this connected work that we learned fans are poor tools to help patients stay cool and do not actually prevent heat-related illnesses - this knowledge completely altered one of the interventions we had been planning and prevented us from causing harm rather than helping. 

Why do you feel that the work being done here is important? What is the impact you’re hoping it will have for physicians? For patients? 

During the heat-dome in 2021, we learned how severe the impact of heat-related illnesses is for our most vulnerable populations, up to and including death. We also learned that the majority of these deaths occurred in people’s homes.  

Working on a project that has created resources and tools that support Family Physicians in the prevention of these potentially devastating impacts has been critically valuable, both for the patients in our community and for the physicians who serve them.  

How has member participation contributed to this project’s success? 

Our physician members’ active participation in our heat-related illness prevention webinar was a major contributor to the success not only of our project, but of our community’s prevention efforts last summer. We also had a physician-led creation process for our education session that ensured the content was clinically relevant and clinically accurate.  

What’s next for this work? 

Dr. Amol Lail, once of the 4Cs Project’s physician champions, will be hosting a heat-related illness prevention education session with updated resources and Fraser Health-supported links to community supports in July of 2024.