New Counsellor
We are pleased to welcome Amy to our team! Amy is a Registered Clinical Counsellor with a background in physiotherapy…
HOW WE CAME TO LIFE
This is a powerful story about changepainTM, a clinic driven by the life mission of its founder to revolutionize healthcare for whole-person care.
Beginning with dreams of a better life for their children, immigrant parents brave the arduous journey to Canada. Yet, faced with insurmountable hardships and limited resources, their dreams crumble into heartache and family breakup.
In Canada, it is not the poverty of resources that hold people back from realizing their life dreams, but rather the lack of emotional health, of genuine supports, and the critical knowledge or help to navigate the next steps. So changepainTM started over 43 years ago as a mantra for a little girl to survive, and it has evolved over a lifetime to a warrior mantra of hope to change pain of all sources to love with love.
As she believed that education is the path to freedom, she ultimately became a doctor and this clinic was born to unite like-minded changemakers to make breakthrough solutions together differently.
OUR CLINIC TIMELINE
01
Our doors open in Vancouver in the space that Dr. Chan Gunn used to evolve IMS. We started with one specialist and two GPs focused on trigger point injections, and it soon becomes a teaching centre for residents, medical students, and practitioners. We now have a team of 65 and growing.
02
First physio joins us. We trialed our first MSP Group Medical Visits in our attempts to provide broad evidence pain management beyond just medications and needling procedures. A month later, we became the first CPSBC accredited Pain Infusion centre offering IV Ketamine and Lidocaine for pain management.
03
We launched the Interventional Pain Fellowship Program and trained our first Interventional Pain Fellow. We now have capacity to support up to 6 fellows or post-grad trainees annually.
04
We were accredited by CPSBC for a second four-year term for our advanced pain infusion program.
05
We added access to much needed MSP-covered fluoroscopy guided Radiofrequency Lesioning services by collaborating with the False Creek Surgical Centre where we rented their procedure room. We moved our clinic equipment there each scheduled day. Now we have our own fluoroscopy room.
06
We were recognized as a Pain Centre of Excellence with Veterans Affairs of Canada and formalized our research unit. We also became the only community clinic of 15 BC centres for Surgical Patient Optimization Collaborative. We continue to expand our care services for our veterans and surgical patients.
07
All of changepain services become virtual due to COVID pandemic and we maintain hybrid services since then. Expanded group medical visits offerings from six sessions a week to up 75 and now we have an average of 35 pain neuroscience based sessions per week.
08
After the new CPSBC Pain Clinic Standards were published, we received provisional accreditation to provide the CPSBC Procedural Pain Management (PPM) Services.
09
We happily announced to our team of 60 that we officially started the process of building a new clinic home in Burnaby. Later in September 2022, architectural plans are approved by the College of Physicians and Surgeons (CPSBC) to proceed. In December 2022, we received City of Burnaby approval to proceed, and construction starts on the new site.
10
The Cambie pain clinic location passes 3 CPSBC accreditation audits for our accredited programs in Pain Procedure Management (PPM), Pain Management Infusions (PMI), and IV ketamine for depression (KET) and we now have capacity for 6 UBC pain training fellows.
11
Construction is complete and the City of Burnaby Occupancy Permit is achieved without revisions
12
The new Burnaby Medical and Allied Health clinic location passes 3 CPSBC accreditation audits for our programs in Pain Procedure Management (PPM), Pain Management Infusions (PMI), and IV ketamine for depression (KET) and highest standards for operational safety and rehabilitation practice
13
The new changepain Medical & Allied Health clinic in Burnaby passes 3 CPSBC accreditation audits for our programs in PPM, KET, PMI. Both the space and facility receives recognition for the highest standards for operational safety and pain rehabilitation clinical practice.
14
Changepain team moved out of the Vancouver clinic location and moved into the Burnaby clinic on 3605 Gilmore Way the next day. We received the official CPSBC approval to open and our Medical & Allied health teams begin a new era of care in Burnaby.
WHAT WE STAND FOR
changepainTM is more than an accredited medical and allied health pain clinic. changepainTM stands for a healthcare rising call to action to change pain in our system from disease-care to health-care.
 We stand to change the:Â
- Pain of individuals: To get unstuck from the pain of the body, mind, emotions, and barriers within the system.
- Pain of the system: To resolve Healthcare provider burnout and administrative burden.
- Pain of healthcare foundations: To move from disease-focused care to holistic health-care
This change starts with us.
Changing the pain of individuals
- Preventive Measures: We do everything possible to prevent delay in care to patients and their families. This includes encouraging healthy lifestyles, improving communications, easing administrative burden, and providing critical education to navigate next steps. Not having a GP is not a barrier to our care.
- Holistic Care: We focus on whole-person care, considering mental health, social determinants, and lifestyle factors alongside physical health and find ways to overcome geography and funding barriers.
- Patient Empowerment: Engaging our patients as active participants in their health, we not only provide them with tools, education, and support to make informed decisions about their well-being, we hold them accountable.
Changing the pain of the system
- Integrated Care: We believe that Health of mind, body and families are one in the same and effective care cannot be reduced to a single body part, fee code or ID number. We nurture a mindset that all disciplines can learn from and build on each other. We attract high level clinical expertise committed to continuous improvement in team communication, care coordination, and sharing knowledge to streamline care and processes. We support each other to share care for our patients.
- Incentivize Outcomes: We believe that recuperating health is far beyond the effects of one needle, one medication or one exercise. Despite the limits of fee-for-service care in BC, we find ways to deliver layered whole person care to overdeliver on value focused on positive health outcomes. We feel deep satisfaction as healthcare providers when we see our patients improve.
- Technological Innovation: We are technology nerds and constantly look for technology and digital breakthroughs to improve access, efficiency, and quality of care.
Changing the pain of healthcare foundations
- Community Engagement: We keep up to date and navigate people to resources to address social determinants of health, such as access to healthy food, safe housing, and education, which significantly impact well-being.
- Policy Reform: We are actively involved in organizations at varying system levels aimed at developing training programs, practice standards, and policy initiatives to enhance preventive care, improve equitable access, and evolve healthcare service models that better match current needs.
The changepain team represents much more than excellence in pain care and functional movement.
We lead with love and creativity to help break through barriers because we all face the same challenges.
We choose to say please and thank you to spread kindness.
We intend with our every effort to make access to resources happen because we believe that no one should be left behind.
We expect of ourselves and our patients to put out best effort daily and to offer grace to each other as we navigate our way through life.
We activate useable, accessible whole person care solutions. Â
We designed our space with the inspiration of nature’s power to heal inside and out.Â
We commit to being the change we want to see.
WHERE ARE WE GOING?
Ultimately, shaping the future of healthcare needs all of us to care and do something about it.
That means that every one of us can make changes in our roles as patients, as clinician leaders, as policy makers, and as funders.
We know it can be done. Â
We continue to grow our team and partnerships with like-minded individuals and groups.
We persist in redefining culture, leadership and processes in healthcare to transform disease-care to health-care.
We inspire others to build with us collectively.
As each effort adds to another, we will see the change.
Come join us.
Mission
Expanding on our excellence in pain care, we co-create and illuminate conscious healthcare solutions worldwide for 100 million people.
Vision
We inspire and build the world’s new conscious health care solutions to be universally accessible and useful.
Are you curious?
Stay informed of the latest news & updates.
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