Northern Health is responsible for acute care, public health, mental health and addictions, and home and community care for a geographic area that covers close to two-thirds of British Columbia. Jeanette Foreman, Quality Improvement Lead for the NW region, is directly involved in accessing information for health professionals to provide high quality care in the North, and also focuses on teaching them how to find evidence-based information themselves.

“Our CEO is extremely supportive of evidence-informed practice” Foreman explains, which promotes an atmosphere conducive to sharing skills and fully utilizing available information and research. To date, Foreman and colleagues have trained about 115 health care professionals in 2-day evidence-informed practice workshops, focusing on the use of Medline and CINAHL databases, as well as the Cochrane Library. The workshop consists of four modules that help clinicians and other health professionals to develop research questions, search the databases, evaluate the literature, and then apply the evidence in practice.

Foreman uses evidence-based resources available through e-HLbc constantly in her decision support role. She accesses information for a variety of health professionals from frontline workers to executive-level administrators. While examining perinatal depression strategies within the community, there was uncertainty as to whether a particular depression screening tool would be culturally appropriate to the large Aboriginal population in the area. Within half an hour Foreman was able to locate an article showing that the tool had been used among First Nations in Saskatchewan, indicating that it may be appropriate in BC as well.

When executive administrators pose questions to her, Foreman compiles a literature review, based on resources she accesses through e-HLbc.

Foreman strongly asserts that being part of a consortium benefits the work she and her colleagues do. “It’s a 100% improvement to access” when compared to other areas she has worked in, or has knowledge of, where freely available databases are the only resource, and full-text articles are few. “e-HLbc is a large boon to us rurally,” she adds of the access that would otherwise be unavailable to communities without a university housing a health science library.

Jeanette Foreman
NW Quality Improvement Lead
Quality and Innovation
Northern Health