PODCAST · health
Qualitycast North
by Qualitycast North
The Qualitycast North podcast showcases Northern British Columbian physicians and healthcare workers and their work in improving the quality of healthcare where they live. In an interview format, our host Dr. Shyr Chui invites guests to talk about their careers in rural medicine, and how they are improving healthcare through innovative quality improvement projects. Episodes are released every 2 weeks. Qualitycast North is a production of the Northern Health Physician Quality Improvement initiative, and is co-produced by Dr. Shyr Chui, and PQI Coach Lee Cameron. This Initiative is a flagship program of the Specialist Services Committee which represents a collaborative partnership between our provincial government and Doctors of BC, and includes regular representation from the local health authorities.
Episodes
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S5 Ep28: The invisible army and the essential contribution of caregivers to health featuring Wendy Johnstone from Family Caregivers BC.
Behind nearly every patient in the health care system is an often-unseen family caregiver providing essential support. Their contribution is immense, yet remains largely invisible. When that support breaks down it affects health outcomes, care quality, and the system as a whole. In this episode…
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S5 Ep27: Cutting the Carbon Footprint of Health Care featuring Dr. Maura Brown
Climate change was front and centre this past summer, from another severe wildfire season to record-breaking heat domes around the world. If these environmental threats leave you feeling helpless or anxious about the future, you’re not alone. In a Qualitycast North first, we explore planetary...
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S5 Ep26: Keeping rural emergency department doors open with VERRa featuring Dr. Brydon Blacklaws
As temporary rural emergency room closures become more common and the rural physician shortage continues, virtual physician support is increasingly important for keeping hospital doors open. The Rural Coordination Centre of BC has long been a leader in this area, offering a lifeline to rural...
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S5 Ep25: Say goodbye to unproductive meetings with better facilitation featuring Jennifer Aitken
This week, we focus on a topic everyone can relate to: bad meetings. According to today’s guest, Jennifer Aitken, unproductive meetings can often be avoided with more forethought, clearer structure, and better preparation. Jennie is Director of Medical Staff Quality and Improvement for Island...
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S5 Ep24: Healing our health care system through Truth and Reconciliation featuring Barbara Taylor
After several high-profile incidents and the subsequent BC governments In Plain Sight report published in 2020, a new policy and educational framework aimed at eradicating Indigenous-Specific Anti-Racism (or ISAR) has emerged to tackle the deep-seated attitudes and impacts of settler colonialism....
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S5 Ep23: Texting MYDOC for better diabetes care featuring Dr. Eiko Waida
A familiar voice returns to the podcast this week. Dr. Eiko Waida, who recently joined us as co-host for the special series on the Romanow Report, takes the guest’s seat today talking about her own quality improvement work in the pediatric diabetes clinic at Vernon Jubilee Hospital. We hear how…
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S5 Ep22: Boxing Back to Mental Health featuring 7-time National Boxing Champion Kenny Lally
Life can be a cruel sport, often serving both joy and heartbreak in equal measure. But sometimes what matters is how we stand up again after getting knocked down. Join us for an emotional episode this week as we interview local Prince George boxing hero and club owner Kenny Lally about his...
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S5 Ep21: What Global Health Delivery systems can teach us about rural medicine in the North featuring Dr. Navpreet Sidhu
Medical schools major on training student physicians on the pathological basis of disease and the evidence-based therapies we prescribe to heal disease. But important and often overlooked contributors to health are the social determinants: poverty, nutrition, housing and related socio-economic...
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S5 Ep20: The Romanow Report at 25 [Part 4]. The spirit of the Romanow Report lives on - improving health care in British Columbia today” featuring Dr. Gordon Hoag, Senior Physician Quality Improvement Co-Lead
Qualitycast North is excited to bring you a special 4-episode series celebrating the 25-year anniversary of The Royal Commission on the Future of Health Care in Canada and the subsequent, ground-breaking, Romanow Report. About the Royal Commission and Romanow Report In 2001, the Federal…
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S5 Ep19: The Romanow Report at 25 [Part 3]. Generating high-impact health system improvement at the Provincial level featuring Dr. Verna Yiu, former CEO of Alberta Health Services.
Qualitycast North is excited to bring you a special 4-episode series celebrating the 25-year anniversary of The Royal Commission on the Future of Health Care in Canada and the subsequent, ground-breaking, Romanow Report. About the Royal Commission and Romanow Report In 2001, the Federal…
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S5 Ep18: The Romanow Report at 25 [Part 2]. “How we built it and life on the road” featuring Greg Marchildon, former Chief of Staff to Roy Romanow.
Qualitycast North is excited to bring you a special 4-episode series celebrating the 25-year anniversary of The Royal Commission on the Future of Health Care in Canada and the subsequent, ground-breaking, Romanow Report. About the Royal Commission and Romanow Report In 2001, the Federal…
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S5 Ep17: The Romanow Report at 25 [Part 1]. “Why I chose Roy Romanow” featuring The Right Honorable Jean Chrétien
Qualitycast North is excited to bring you a special 4-episode series celebrating the 25-year anniversary of The Royal Commission on the Future of Health Care in Canada and the subsequent, ground-breaking, Romanow Report. About the Royal Commission and Romanow Report In 2001, the Federal…
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S5 Ep16: Ketamine-Assisted Psychotherapy - Improving the Patient Experience featuring Dr Graham Bergstra
In this episode we’re returning to the rural community of Hazleton in Northwest BC. The demand for psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy is increasing as word spreads about its usefulness, but how should one design this service that best meets the clinical, social and cultural needs of its patients?...
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S5 Ep15: How health data "stewardship" can drive sustainable healthcare in Canada featuring Anderson Chuck, the President and CEO of CIHI
When you think of Canadian health data, the organization that springs immediately to mind is the Canadian Institute for Health Information or CIHI. In this episode we interview Anderson Chuck, the President and CEO of CIHI, about how Canada is “data rich but information poor” and how using...
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S5 Ep14: “The best rural emergency medicine course hands down” featuring Dr. Jel Coward and Dr. Rebecca Lindley from the CARE course
Delivering high-quality, emergency medicine education to rural practitioners and their teams for over 15 years, the Rural Coordination Centre of British Columbia’s CARE course has been consistently rated amongst the best. But what are the secrets to its success? This week we interview its…
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S5 Ep13: Herding Cats and Steering Ships - Dr. Ronald Chapman
This week we’re returning to the Executive C-Suite this time from a Physician’s perspective with our guest Dr. Ronald Chapman, the Vice President of Medicine of Northern Health. We talk about his early commitment to a medical administrative career track, what a VP of Medicine does, his 13-year...
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S5 Ep12: Medicine at the Edge Revisited featuring Dr. Ray Markham (originally released Jan 24, 2025)
This week we’re taking a well-deserved week off and so in preparation for this year’s Rural Coordination Centre of BC’s Rural Health Conference to be held in Prince George on May 29-31st, we’re re-releasing one of our favorite archived episodes featuring RCCbc’s own Dr. Ray Markham. In this...
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S5 Ep11: Hope Air - providing life-saving healthcare access and equity for rural communities featuring Mark Rubinstein
One of the largest drivers of health outcome inequity for patients living in rural communities is access to care. This disparity is magnified when combined with low income, reduced patient mobility and the high costs of travel to tertiary centers, usually located in larger cities. Tackling this...
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S5 Ep10: Kudos and Lullabies – delivering high-impact, large-scale improvement featuring Dr. Kalah Blackstock
In this episode, we return to Bulkley Valley District Hospital in Smithers, Northwest BC who, by combining high-level collaboration between local physicians, front line staff and operational leaders with quality improvement methodology, have generated startling improvements in what matters to…
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S5 Ep9: Creating capacity "upstream". Keeping COPD patients out of hospital and in the community featuring Donna Jouantapp, Lina Alsakran and Dr. Zoe Pullan
As overfilled hospitals everywhere are struggling to cope with a busy winter of respiratory disease and influenza, many in healthcare are calling for a more “upstream” approach to preventing Emergency Department visits and hospital admissions. But intervening upstream is more difficult than it...
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S5 Ep8: “Focus on your North Star” - Building Macro-support for Physician-Led Healthcare Quality Improvement featuring Cindy Myles
Listeners will be familiar with the physician-led healthcare quality improvement work featured on this podcast, but they may not be familiar with how this work is formally supported at the Provincial level. In this episode, we interview Cindy Myles, the Vice President of the Specialist Services...
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S5 Ep7: The Success Story of Pathways featuring Drs. Kathleen Ross and Tracy Monk
In our current technological age, the most successful information platforms are those that provide exactly the information the user needs quickly and accurately. This is the underlying premise behind British Columbia’s hugely successful medical information platform Pathways. In today’s episode we...
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S5 Ep6: Building Safer Patient Care featuring Christina Krause from Health Quality BC
In this gem of an interview, we chat with Christina Krause, the CEO of Health Quality BC about a whole range of topics around patient safety from the role of Provincial quality and safety organizations and the new BC Patient Safety Strategy to what’s changed in our understanding of safer patient...
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S5 Ep5: Reducing hospital admissions for mental health crises by bridging hospital and community care featuring Alanna Summers, Jennifer Sandberg and Jane Dolan
In this episode we feature another award-winning, quality improvement project this time based in Victoria, Vancouver Island. Our guests are Alanna Summers, Program Manager and a registered psychiatric nurse, Jennifer Sandburg, Team Lead occupational therapist, and Jane Dolan, MHSU Clinical...
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S5 Ep4: "Taking a bite out of health inequity" featuring Dr. Diana Bark and Lara Frederick
In this episode, we head upstream in our health system with this podcast’s first ever guests from the public health sector. Northern Health’s Medical Health Officer Dr. Diana Bark and Director of Public Health Lara Frederick take us through their QI work identifying, analyzing, and addressing a…
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S5 Ep3: Optimizing Visiting Specialist Clinics and Equitable Care featuring Dr. Angela How
Visiting specialist clinics are a lifeline for patients with chronic disease in rural and remote communities across the North. They save patients travel time and costs and also provide care in context of their own local communities and available supports. But patient non-attendance at these…
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S5 Ep2: With Great Data Comes Great Responsibility featuring Dr. Cole Stanley and Gayle Grout from Health Data Coalition
Our topic in this episode is the power and potential of good data for improving patient care. In a broad ranging interview with our guests Dr. Cole Stanley and Gayle Grout from Health Data Coalition (HDC), we hear about the origins and goals of HDC and how the aggregation of primary care…
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S5 Ep1: Goodbye Season 4, Hello Season 5!
As season 4 comes to and end and we enter our 5th year of the podcast with season 5, Shyr and Lee reflect on their favourite highlights from last season. With twice as many episodes as previous seasons, there was a lot to choose from and of course all our guests left an indelible impression. What...
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S4 Ep20: What the Mayo Clinic Gets Right featuring Drs. Kalah Blackstock and Dr. John Hwang
From a healthcare quality perspective, you can’t get much better than the Mayo Clinic. Its global reputation for high quality patient care is unsurpassed. But what exactly makes the Mayo Clinic so good and what can other institutions learn from how the Mayo Clinic does business? To find out, the...
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S4 Ep19: Order in the Face of Wildfire Chaos featuring Gloria Hertz and John Coyne
Residents in British Columbia are no strangers to wildfires which have increased in number and ferocity over recent years. But when an out-of-control wildfire threatens a town, its residents and its healthcare facilities, it rapidly turns into a nightmare come true. The sudden need for healthcare...
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S4 Ep18: If I don’t do it, who will?” Improving healthcare quality through openness, community engagement and the wisdom of Grandmothers featuring Nicole Cross
This week we’re returning to Northern Health’s C-Suite and interview Nicole Cross, Northern Health’s Vice President of Indigenous Health and Chief Planning and Quality Officer. In this treat of an episode, we cover a wide range of topics including her career journey from entry-level Indigenous...
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S4 Ep17: Care in the Cells – Improving medical care for those in short term police custody featuring Dr. Michelle Brousson
When those in short term police custody need acute medical care, getting them that care presents logistic problems often resulting in time consuming and labor-intensive visits to the local hospital emergency department with police escorts. This week’s guest is Dr. Michelle Brousson, a family...
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S4 Ep16: Busting Myths around Physician Leadership featuring Dr. Gurpreet Narang
Taking on your first leadership role as a physician can be a daunting prospect. New physician leaders can feel ill-prepared and ill-equipped when thrust into these positions. But it turns out training and experience in Quality Improvement can help prepare new physician leaders as many of QI…
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S4 Ep15: The Power of Superconnection featuring Dr. Lawrence Yang
Returning to the podcast is everyone’s favourite physician QI coach and social media maven Dr. Lawrence Yang. He’s a family doc, physician wellness advocate and QI coach but is probably most well well-known for his social media presence and legions of posted selfies with fellow Quality Improvers....
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S4 Ep14: Violence and Mental Health. Advocating for Mental Health in the North featuring Dr. Barb Kane
It’s a problem which we read and hear about in the media on an all too regular basis. But violence and mental health is not only a problem on our city streets, it’s also an issue in our hospitals. This week’s guest is Northern psychiatrist Dr. Barb Kane. In this episode we talk about why violence...
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S4 Ep13: Wraparound care for Alcohol Use Disorder in the Emergency Department featuring Dr. Aron Zuidhof and Dorrie Fasick
Patients with alcohol use disorder (AUD) are some of the heaviest users of western healthcare resources and particularly emergency departments. Effective treatments for alcohol use disorder have recently become available but only a very small proportion of eligible AUD receive treatment. To talk...
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S4 Ep12: From Tiny Acorns - The Amazing Origin Story of BC’s Physician Quality Improvement Program featuring Dr. Curt Smecher
British Columbia’s Physician Quality Improvement (PQI) program celebrates its 8th birthday this year. Since inception, this program has produced amazing improvement work some of which we’ve showcased on this podcast. PQI has also generated a culture shift towards quality amongst the physician...
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S4 Ep11: The Good and Wise Lead QI Lives. Special "Mic-Swap" Episode with Guest Host Dr. Gurpreet Narang and featuring Dr. Shyr Chui
In this special “mic swap” episode, Lee Cameron and guest co-host Dr. Gurpreet Narang turn the tables on our regular co-host Shyr Chui to ask him about his journey into QI, some of his current projects and memorable highlights from over 20 years of QI work. Amongst other things, we touch on Whole...
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S4 Ep10: Improving Access to Emergency Care for West Coast Indigenous Communities featuring Dr. Jim Christenson
Today’s guest is a giant and well-respected figure in British Columbian Emergency Medicine. In addition to his many research and quality improvement projects, Dr. Jim Christenson helped create the British Columbia Emergency Medicine Network improving the quality of emergency care across the...
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S4 Ep9: Continuing Medicine at the Edge featuring Dr. Ray Markham
In the second part of our interview with Northern Rural Family Physician, Dr. Ray Markham, we discuss some of his leadership work supporting rural communities across the province through the Rural Coordination Centre of BC. We discuss how to build a provincial support network and how the...
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S4 Ep8: Northern BC Canucks visit the IHI Forum featuring Dr. Kalah Blackstock, Dr. Darren Jakubec, Dr. Christin Fabriel-Leclerc, Dr. Ian Schokking and Dr. Omesh Syal
Each year, the Institute of Healthcare Improvement holds its annual forum in December. Over 4 days, between 3 to 4 thousand healthcare quality improvers from across the world join together for a packed program of workshops, QI project reports, improvement science education and keynote lectures…
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S4 Ep7: Medicine at the edge featuring Dr. Ray Markham
If you’re ever tempted to think medicine is practised the same everywhere in British Columbia, think again. Small rural communities present specific challenges to healthcare delivery due to their size and location, no more so than in the North where we also have long, snowy winters to contend…
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S4 Ep6: A beer a day doesn't keep the doctor away featuring Dr. Damian Fay
We’re returning to Northeast BC today and the subject might make some listeners squirm a little in their seats. We talk to Dr. Damian Fay, a rural GP and sexual health practitioner based in Hudson’s Hope about his QI work improving his vasectomy service. We talk about the challenges patients...
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S4 Ep5: Finding purpose in Quality Improvement featuring Dr. Daisy Dulay.
We’ve showcased a lot of excellent physician-led quality improvement work on this podcast with its corresponding positive impact on patient care. But what is the effect of doing this work on the physicians themselves? Talking about the benefits of doing QI on her day-to-day work, life and career…
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S4 Ep4: What Matters to You? Maternity Nurses in Smithers BC featuring Dr. Kate Niethammer.
Recruitment and retention of front-line staff is a major challenge across healthcare systems globally right now, and no more so than in small, rural communities across Northern British Columbia. Today’s guest Dr. Kate Niethammer, a rural GP and obstetrician based in Smithers, BC, explains how…
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S4 Ep3: The Great X-Ray Bake Off – Improving Joy at Work one cookie at a time - featuring James Cheesman
With the current challenges faced by healthcare organizations around the world, maintaining staff morale and Joy in Work is a daunting task. The response of one medical imaging department in Northern British Columbia? Competitive baking! This week we interview James Cheesman, a Medical Radiation...
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S4 Ep2: Putting Patients at the Centre featuring Kim Eggers
When improving or making changes to the way organizations provide health care, it often seems the last person consulted is the patient themselves. This seemingly perverse order of priority is a lingering throwback to a more historical and paternalistic model of care. One person looking to change...
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S4 Ep1: Special Episode: Northern Health’s new CEO - the first 9 months featuring Ciro Panessa
We’re back for our fourth season with our new co-host, Lee Cameron. Our season opener is a cracker featuring special guest Ciro Panessa, the new CEO of Northern Health. In this episode we talk about Ciro’s journey to CEO, his first 9 months, and Northern Health’s priorities over the next 5 years....
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S3 Ep9: Deanna reflects on her favorite 3 episodes from the last 3 seasons of Qualitycast North
It’s our Season 3 finale and a special episode tinged with a little sadness as it’s our Producer and Co-host Deanna’s last episode with QCN. This week I turn the tables on Deanna and ask about her experiences on the show and to take us through her favourite interviews from our first three…
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S3 Ep8: Mind Space. Building successful skills for wellbeing across British Columbia with Dr. Fiona Petigara
According to Statistics Canada, Canada is currently experiencing a huge increase in unmet mental health needs. The prevalence of anxiety, depression and social phobia have jumped since the Covid pandemic. How can our health systems cope with this surge in demand for mental health services when…
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ABOUT THIS SHOW
The Qualitycast North podcast showcases Northern British Columbian physicians and healthcare workers and their work in improving the quality of healthcare where they live. In an interview format, our host Dr. Shyr Chui invites guests to talk about their careers in rural medicine, and how they are improving healthcare through innovative quality improvement projects. Episodes are released every 2 weeks.
Qualitycast North is a production of the Northern Health Physician Quality Improvement initiative, and is co-produced by Dr. Shyr Chui, and PQI Coach Lee Cameron. This Initiative is a flagship program of the Specialist Services Committee which represents a collaborative partnership between our provincial government and Doctors of BC, and includes regular representation from the local health authorities.
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Qualitycast North
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How many episodes does Qualitycast North have?
Qualitycast North currently has 79 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.
What is Qualitycast North about?
The Qualitycast North podcast showcases Northern British Columbian physicians and healthcare workers and their work in improving the quality of healthcare where they live. In an interview format, our host Dr. Shyr Chui invites guests to talk about their careers in rural medicine, and how they are...
How often does Qualitycast North release new episodes?
Qualitycast North has 79 episodes. Check the episode list to see recent publication dates and frequency.
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You can listen to Qualitycast North on PodParley by clicking any episode. We provide an embedded audio player for direct listening, and you can also subscribe via your preferred podcast app using the RSS feed.
Who hosts Qualitycast North?
Qualitycast North is created and hosted by Qualitycast North.
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