Getting there: A peek at the planning process for the SAPC Summit

It has probably been, and continues to be, the largest and most successful collaborative effort to take place in the world of arthritis. It is like no other planning committee I have ever participated on. Had I only known what I was signing on for ……

The Standards of Arthritis Prevention and Care Summit (SAPC) planning committee was formed in the fall of 2004. The first face-to-face meeting of what seemed a huge, and unwieldy group of people representing arthritis community stakeholders, wearing their various hats and trying to influence the direction of the Summit was held in January 2005. The four co-chairs, Cheryl Koehn, and Drs. John Esdaile, Gillian Hawker, and Diane Mosher promised to bring strength and courage of conviction to the process. Cheryl was charged with bringing consumer representatives to the planning table. She brought Andrea Crowe, a young woman with JIA, Pam Sherwin representing the Children’s Arthritis Foundation, Jean Légaré representing Patient Partners, Joyce Greene representing the Consumer Advisory Council of CAN, Gordon Whitehead from the Consumer Advisory Board of ARC and yours truly representing CAPA.

At that first meeting, 10 theme standards were identified. Subsequently blended into nine they were further distilled into three broad areas, Prevention, Management and Models of Care and Awareness. Team leaders were assigned to each of the nine themes or standard’s areas. The Standards Development (SD) Team leaders included consumers, clinicians, and researchers who volunteered to spear head the process. Those leaders then assembled their teams from the volunteers and various health care professionals from across Canada who were nominated by the team leaders and members for their expertise in the theme area. Some teams had 10 – 20 members assuring a comprehensive, and multi-disciplined approach to the work. Within each team, a scan was done on the existing research pertaining to the theme - VOLUMES OF READING! On August 22nd, after many, many teleconferences and drafts, each team submitted their draft standards to the co-chairs. The submissions were categorized as ‘Definitive’, ‘Provisional’ or ‘Aspirational’ with one or two standards for each team.

At the same time, Cheryl was leading the Government Relations (GR) Team building process. Eleven GR Teams were developed: Ten provincial government teams plus a federal government team mirroring the SD teams They are led by one or two GR team leaders. Each team also did an environmental scan of their provincial governments to target key policy makers, decision makers, as well as people who influence the policy and decision makers. Letters were written, follow up phone calls have been made, appointments for and meetings with the various identified ‘targets’ took place throughout the summer. The purpose of this piece of the planning was to inform and engage government in the process of the Summit and to extend invitations to them to attend. Without government ‘buy in’ it will be difficult to move the Summit recommendations forward to implementation.

Up date on Progress

Well, it is amazing and awe inspiring to see how far we’ve come and the success we’ve made. Several high-ranking provincial and federal government officials will attend. This is critical to the success of the rollout of the standards once they are finalized at the Summit. Plus we are using the success of several of the provinces to provide leverage to the other provincial teams whose ‘targets’ are sitting on the fence, as it were!

As for the Standards Teams, the planning committee met on September 16th. Dr. Gillian Hawker presented a broad list of issues that the teams had identified and then presented a very long list of possible research questions that could come from the issues identified. Drs. Gillian Hawker and John Esdaile presented a distilled, smushed down version of the draft standards the teams submitted. Twenty-nine Definitive, Provisional and Aspirational standards were submitted to the co-chairs. Three to five will be the ‘take the ball and run with it’ Standards that come out of the Summit. Governments are not interested in a wish list of 29. After presenting the draft standards, word-smithing them, discussing them, agreeing and disagreeing with them, the planning committee had the opportunity to vote on the top three they personally wanted to see move forward. Five surfaced as critical to the arthritis community. However, the nine teams will present their draft standards at the Summit for consultation, discussion, comment and general tweaking by the delegates. Having been involved in the process so far, I’m truly very anxious to see how it all plays out!

The real work will begin when the Summit ends and the implementation process begins. Remember, these draft standards were developed for Canadians with arthritis, not Ontarians or Albertans, and the wording in the draft standards reflects that. To implement national Standards for Arthritis Prevention and Care will not be easy, but after seeing what has been done to date, I’m beginning to believe anything is possible!

See you at the Summit.