The second annual Ignite Summit took place at Fleming's Sutherland Campus on May 9. More than 100 guests attended the day-long event.
Fleming College's Ignite the Electric City: Healthy City, Healthy People brought together experts, policymakers, and community leaders to examine some of the critical health care issues facing our community.
"This was Ignite 2.0, now more than ever it is so important for Fleming to bring together experts, influencers, opinion leaders, and thought leaders to have disruptive conversation about the challenges we face, and we face profound challenges," said Fleming College President Maureen Adamson. "I have deep belief in the collective in the room, that we can solve the problems that we are facing."
Keynote speakers included Dr. Danielle Martin, Chair, Department of Family and Community Medicine at the University of Toronto and Dr. Lynn Mikula, President & CEO, Peterborough Regional Health Centre. Both encouraged Peterborough to embrace out-of-the-box solutions to these vital challenges.
"Let's look at the intersection between health care, education, and innovation, because this is where we need to find our solutions," said Dr. Mikula. "There is not enough money to solve this problem. We must get creative."
Ideas came from all sectors of the region.
A range of discussions focused on the overlap between social services and policing, called for a new way to support local media outlets and community leaders spoke of the growing need for greater civic engagement.
There were calls to re-humanize public health care, and to take a proactive, preventative, and predictive approach to medicine. Some big-picture thinkers suggested breaking the mould entirely by dismantling our current health care system and replacing it with a collaborative, community-based approach to better care for everyone.
"There are tons of great ideas out there that are implementable here, and you have all of the assets you need in this community to implement them," said Dr. Danielle Martin. "You have the institutions, you have the backbone, and you have a committed group of leaders to make them happen."
Fleming College is already taking steps to ensure the ideas and visions shared during Ignite the Electric City: Healthy City, Healthy People, become a reality for the Peterborough and the Kawarthas region. With the goal of becoming a hub of top-tier health care education, Fleming is preparing to offer multiple new programs in the health sector. This will help meet the growing demand for qualified, skilled workers while bolstering health care in our region.
The first of these programs, Diagnostic Cardiac Sonography, has recently been approved by Fleming's Board of Governors.
Fleming's School of Health and Community Services has been actively researching innovative programming that meet current labour market demands. Some examples include Medical Laboratory Technologist, Ultrasound Technician, Diagnostic Imaging Technician (X-ray, MRI, etc.), Anesthetist Assistant, Physician Assistant, Perfusionist and Veterinary Technician.
Fleming expects to make more announcements about these potential new programs in the coming year.
During Ignite the Electric City: Healthy City, Healthy People, illustrator Shannon Loomer captured the ideas of the day and turned those thoughts into a visual representation of this year's summit. A copy of Loomer's work is attached.
Last year's conference, Ignite: The Electric City Summit, reimagined the future of Peterborough. Details from that conference can be found here.
