2023
In November of 2023 the second annual YSPOR health summit was held. Our focus remained local and highlighted the current, upcoming, and recently completed health research within the Yukon – both supported by and independent of YSPOR. The given theme of this year’s summit was ‘Knowledge Sharing’.
The summit was made available for both in-person and online participants with the main venue hosted at the Kwanlin Dun Cultural Centre (KDCC) in Whitehorse. Last year’s event featured smaller viewing hubs stationed in the communities of Old Crow and Dawson City. This year both hubs were made fully interactive. This included hub-exclusive workshops and local catering in Dawson City, and speakers presenting in person from each hub, including day 2 keynote Chief Pauline Frost from Old Crow. Attendance metrics were as follows:
- KDCC Whitehorse – estimated total of between 145 individual attendees over the 2-day summit
- 15 unique attendees at the Dawson City Hub over the two days
- 10 unique attendees at the Old Crow Hub over the two days
- 77 individual virtual attendees
The summit hosted 31 speakers over the course of two days, of which 26 were local to the territory and 5 were regional. This year also featured wellness breaks including traditional beading workshops, a hand games demonstration, and a mindfulness sound vibrations and drumming workshop. All were designed to be interactive and provide a mindful, interactive break between presentations and was a direct result of requests from survey feedback last year. Also new this year is the approach to graphic recording, in which the artist captured moments from all participants instead of exclusively focusing on presentations. Some images have been included in this report for reference.
YSPOR conducted another optional survey this year to obtain feedback on participants’ experience at the summit. We received 54 responses with an overall average satisfaction score of 4.6 out of 5. This is an increase from 4.4 last year. Each question had an optional field for comments. Highlights include:
- Everyone was very friendly and welcoming, loved hearing about all the amazing work that is happening and getting to make new connections. Great prizes too!!
- Enjoyed it all. Hard to pick favourites. Enjoyed it even more than last year. YPSOR did a great job!
- Networking with others working in health world, hearing about a variety of projects, insights from speakers like Pauline and Math’ieya
- Cross community conversations across Yukon. Very informative to know what the rest of Yukon is up to in this area!
2022
November of 2022 the inaugural YSPOR health summit was held. The primary purpose of the summit is to exhibit the work the unit is doing and supporting in the territory that helps advance the unit’s mission and goals of increasing patient-orientated health research in the Yukon. However, since the unit is still in its infancy, the summit was used as an opportunity to showcase a diverse scope of patient-oriented work and research that has been conducted by other SPOR SUPPORT Units from across Canada. The intent was to create visions of projects and work that could be implemented locally with the support of the Yukon SPOR SUPPORT Unit in the future.
The summit was made available for both in-person and online participants with the main venue hosted at the Kwanlin Dun Cultural Centre (KDCC) in Whitehorse and smaller viewing hubs stationed in the communities of Old Crow and Dawson City. Attendance metrics were as follows:
- Kwanlin Dun Cultural Center (Whitehorse) – estimated total of between 150 – 180 individual attendees over the 2-day summit
- 3-15 attendees at the Dawson City Hub at any given time
- 2-4 attendees at the Old Crow Hub
- Approximately 80 individual virtual attendees
The summit hosted 43 speakers over the course of two days of which 22 were local to the territory and 21 were regional. Cross Canada SPOR SUPPORT Units who gave presentations and/or participated in panels include Hotıì ts’eeda, SCPOR, MSSU, BC SUPPORT and NL SUPPORT. In addition, presentations from other non-SPOR entities were given by SPOR Evidence Alliance, Canadian Frailty network, CRISM, along with several local and regional individual researchers who brought forward research studies founded in patient-oriented approaches. Three representatives from CIHR attended the KDCC venue.
The Yukon SPOR SUPPORT Unit conducted an optional survey in order to obtain feedback on participants’ experience at the summit. 75 responses were received with an overall average satisfaction score of 4.4 out of 5.