The Société Santé en français (SSF) is partnering with the Health Standards Organization (HSO) to present a panel on the implementation of the  CAN/HSO 11012:2018 – Access to Health and Social Services in Official Languages  standard at the National Health Leadership Conference  in Edmonton on June 15 and 16, 2020.

Jean-Gilles Pelletier, Executive Director of SSF, will moderate the panel discussion with Dr. Louise Clément (HSO), Maryse Castonguay (Hôpital Montfort) and Shoba Ranganathan (Canadian Forces Base Shilo).

The panel will provide participants with an overview of the standard and its implementation. The points of view of two pilot sites that have gone through the recognition process will be presented, along with the support and tools that are offered to the institutions that engage in the process.

In the fall of 2019, the standard’s recognition program was tested at four pilot sites: Saint Boniface Hospital in Winnipeg, Manitoba; Canadian Forces Base Shilo, Manitoba; Hôpital Montfort, in Ottawa, Ontario; and Portage Atlantic in Cassidy Lake, New Brunswick.

These sites were selected with consideration for national representation and different types of organizations (hospitals, community care, etc.). Their objectives were to evaluate the process of implementing the standard and the level of support required, as well as to demonstrate the key role of health managers in implementing the standard at the institutional level.

In a world where health care systems must respond to growing population needs with fewer and fewer resources, a standard and recognition program can help implement adaptive leadership.  As such, HSO and SSF collaborated to develop a language standard to ensure the best therapeutic relationship and effective link between the users and service providers, while maintaining management that minimizes risks to both the system and users.

Thus, the Access to Health and Social Services in Official Languages standard is designed to evaluate access to services and harmonize the health system’s systemic approaches with the local needs of Francophone minority communities. It provides a framework for structuring leadership to improve outcomes for patients, communities and health-care systems.

By participating in the standard’s voluntary recognition process, health and social services organizations demonstrate their ability to provide safe, quality health services in French.

The collaborative leadership of the organizations involved has already proven its worth. The lessons learned from implementation will be presented, along with the impacts and results seen in the field.