Poster 46: The Spinal Cord Injury Solutions Alliance: A Strategy for Meaningful Change in the Quality of Life for Persons With Spinal Cord Injury

Abstract

The demographics of persons with traumatic spinal cord injury (SCI) in Canada are rapidly changing, largely due to increasing falls in the growing elderly population. Likewise, the escalating cost of health services are challenging both the health and social systems, causing new approaches to rehabilitation, community integration, and full participation to be stymied, with the consequences of leaving persons with unmet opportunities to lead full and productive lives. Aligned with the Pan-Canadian SCI-Translational Research Network, the SCI Solutions Alliance, a Canada-wide not-for-profit network of innovative thinkers (consumers, providers, researchers, and policy-makers), brought together by the Rick Hansen Foundation, is proactively investigating integrative change strategies. Under the leadership of the SCI Solutions Alliance, task teams are analyzing health, social, and political environments using national surveys, forums, Delphi processes, and focus groups to understand barriers and enhancers in order to define priorities at the miso, meso, and macro level for improving quality of life for persons with SCI. Priorities targeted by this new network are those characterized as ones not being addressed by the current health, rehabilitation, and social systems provincially or nationally. The Alliance has developed through Wheels in Motion funding unique, customized individual solutions for assistive technology, attendant care, and participation in active living and clinical trials. 2 innovations, the SCI-Pilot Strategy in Ontario and the National Pressure Sore Initiative, will be presented from a health, social, and political perspective as examples of how to drive change for the well-being of the SCI population, advance the field, and add value to the fabric of Canadian society.