I participated in a codesign workshop in Toronto yesterday put on by the Evidence Exchange Network, focused on identifying mental healthcare evidence gathering priorities in the province, and I was so impressed to see that the top three priorities selected by the stakeholders attending were: accessibility, effectiveness, and supporting the voices of those with lived experience. […]
The Open Patient tells the stories of two brain cancer patients, Steven Keating and Liz Salmi, and their experiences with accessing and sharing their medical data. Great insights into the power of making data accessible to patients and empowering them to lead their care with that data.
Eighteen years ago, I was studying Egyptology in university and thought I had my career path planned out – until my entire world came crashing down around me. I found myself on a rollercoaster that never seemed to slow down, that went completely off the rails and the safety bar had flown off thirty seconds […]
This project started with a simple question: How do you access mental health services in Toronto? The answers, however, have been anything but simple. Each answer typically comes in the form of a story. And we’re finding that these are stories full of hope, frustration, tragedy, failure, success, challenges, kindness, inequality, complexity, barriers, and perseverance. The […]
When we started EVERYBODY HAS A BRAIN, our goal was to share information about mental illness and recovery to help people understand what they were dealing with and that it was possible to do something about those mental health challenges. But once you understand that you’re struggling with a mental illness and you can do something about […]
When people are struggling the most, they often encounter a part of the healthcare system that can seem like it was designed in the medieval era: emergency room care for people with mental illnesses. As budgets for mental health services get cut year after year, with no preventative care or dedicated psychiatric treatment centers accessible, […]