Your Last Injury Starts Here

The Cause

WHO
Our organization, the Banff Sport Medicine Foundation (BSMF), is a research and education charity with a Mission to prevent, treat, rehabilitate, and research bone & joint & sport injuries among people of all ages & abilities.

WHAT
Our idea is to prevent secondary injuries to the bones and joints, which are injuries that happen after an initial injury. Once a person has one injury, they are more likely to suffer another injury. These extra secondary injuries might affect the same injured area or can affect another area of the body. For example, if a person suffers a concussion playing sport, they are more likely to sprain their knee or ankle when they return to their activities.

WHY
While preventing secondary injuries is an enormous goal, we know that avoiding even a fraction of these injuries will profoundly affect community wellbeing and the healthcare system because injuries to the bones and joints cost over $1.5 billion per year in Alberta. The direct costs of these injuries include physician visits, rehabilitation therapies, hospital care, and prescription medications. However, there are also indirect costs, such as absence from or reduced work, lost earnings, and reduced community contributions.

HOW
To implement our idea, we will use a well-researched multimedia education plan to reach our community and share injury prevention ideas and recovery plans. If successful, funds from the Field Law Community Fund program will be used to create an injury prevention and management education hub by developing a dedicated website landing page that is accessible, easy to navigate and shares our injury prevention and management resources.

We will also launch our initial secondary injury prevention campaign via community outreach, social media channels and the BSMF website. To demonstrate our reach, so far in 2023, over 25,000 people have visited the website, a significant increase from 12,000 website visitors in 2022. This website traffic suggests an increased interest and need for quality health information. This initial campaign will also use funds to create unique QR code stickers that link to the new BSMF landing page. We will partner with the Banff Sport Medicine Clinic (BSM) to distribute these stickers to all BSM patients and provide them to community members at BSMF events.

Who Will it Benefit?

This initiative will benefit people interested in being active and managing their health. Preventing secondary injuries has the potential to help people with a range of abilities, and from children to older adults.

BSMF has established relationships with local coaches, health professionals and physiotherapy clinics in the Bow Valley, Calgary, and southern Alberta. These partners, in addition to local schools and other sport organizations, will be engaged to help increase awareness of these educational resources and increase impact.

In addition, this initiative will benefit all people who visit the BSMF website in search of quality health information, as well as BSM patients. BSM assesses and treats 1000-1500 patients each month from the Bow Valley, the greater Calgary region, Southern Alberta, as well as southeastern British Columbia.
More broadly, this initiative will also benefit all Albertans by reducing healthcare system costs and burdens.