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Public, Patient, and Family Engagement

The patient voice needs to be integrated into all that we do – planning, evaluating, researching, and improving care. The Public, Patient, and Family Engagement Team at Shared Health can support you in making this happen.

Engagement in health is about enabling and supporting patients, families, and members of the public to be active partners at all levels of the health system: in their own clinical care and self-management, providing input into decisions that shape and improve the quality of patient-care, health programs, policies, evaluation, and research, and building an overall culture of engagement in the health-care system. Patients provide valuable insight into how they experience health-care services, how these services affect their health and how these services enable them to take control of their own health.

Public, patient, and family engagement is included in the principles of the Manitoba Quality and Learning Framework.

The Public, Patient, and Family Engagement Team is working in partnership with the Regional Health Authorities/Service Delivery Organizations and other key health partners in the development of a provincial approach, processes and tools for engagement. These include:

Together, we are:

  • Creating standardized processes and tools to support the integration of the patient voice into decision-making, planning, quality improvement, strategic planning and Clinical and Preventative Services Projects;
  • Creating a Provincial Patient and Family Advisor Network to enable and offer recruitment, training, and connecting Patient/Family Advisors to health-care engagement opportunities;
  • Developing engagement education, tools and resources for staff and Patient/Family Advisors;
  • Providing consultation and mentorship to health system transformation project team members about:
    • how to engage Patient/Family Advisors in planning and evaluation for projects;
    • coaching the facilitation of engagement activities; and,
    • providing other resources and supports as agreed upon.

Exploring and Planning for Engagement and Requesting Advisors

 Connect with us to set up a meeting to determine your engagement needs, or you can request Advisors by completing the request forms below.

Here’s what we can do:

  • Provide information/training for staff to incorporate public, patient, and family engagement in your planning
  • Help plan engagement activities
  • Co-facilitate engagement activities (e.g. focus group)
  • Help develop public, patient, and family engagement surveys
  • Recruit patients, family members, caregivers and the public to participate in engagement activities
  • Obtain feedback from Patient and Family Advisors using the Fast Feedback process
  • Help plan and facilitate experienced based co-design

Request a Patient and Family Advisor

Shared Health Staff, Service Delivery Organizations and external health organizations in Manitoba can request Patient and Family Advisors from the Patient and Family Advisor Network to assist with engagement activities. The Network provides two levels of service/support:

1) Full Support Service

Full Support Service is available to Shared Health Programs and Departments, Service Delivery Organizations (SDOs) and Manitoba Health.

By completing this form, Shared Health’s Public, Patient, and Family Engagement Team will provide support for recruitment, readiness, volunteer management, ongoing support and follow-up/evaluation of Patient and Family Advisors and your engagement activity including:

  • Finding Patient and Family Advisors;
  • Posting and sharing your engagement activity;
  • Receiving ongoing support from the Public, Patient, and Family Engagement Team regarding your Patient and Family Advisors and your engagement activity; and
  • Developing skills helpful for patient engagement

2) Basic Support Service

Basic Support Service is available to those eligible to request Full Support Service, but also to other health-care organizations, including those that are health research-based. Note: Patient and Family Advisors are not research participants in a study, but rather research partners who help inform decision making in health research projects.

By completing this form, Shared Health’s Public, Patient, and Family Engagement Team will:

  • Post your engagement activity/project on the Patient and Family Advisor Network
  • Share it with our Patient and Family Advisors who will be directed to your organization

Request Support for Engaging in Research

For support related to patient/public engagement in research, contact the George & Fay Yee Centre for Healthcare Innovation at [email protected] or https://umanitoba.ca/centre-for-healthcare-innovation/.

Fast Feedback – Quick Way to Gather Feedback from Advisors

Fast Feedback is a process where Patient and Family Advisors are asked for their feedback on a topic, idea, or a decision.  It’s a quick way for Shared Health programs to receive patient and family input on a topic, materials, ideas, or a decision.  Programs often ask for input on patient resources as to whether the content is understandable in simple plain language, if the content makes sense, or if any information is missing that should be included from a patient and family member perspective.  However, Fast Feedback is not limited to getting feedback on patient resources.

Click here to find out how this process works and to submit your request.

Provincial Engagement Community of Practice (for individuals working in health)

The Community of Practice brings together health-care staff from across Manitoba who facilitate public and patient engagement.

The Public, Patient and Family Engagement Team leads and coordinates the work of this network to continue the development of standardized engagement processes, coordinated engagement efforts and to support one another in the work.

If you are facilitating public and patient engagement within the Manitoba health-care system and are not currently part of this Community of Practice and would like to join, email [email protected]

Resources

The following resources may be helpful if you are working on engagement in your service delivery organization: 

Information for the general public on engagement and the Patient and Family Advisor Network can be found on the Shared Health website.

Staff

Please reach out if you are exploring how to engage Patient and Family Advisors. We are here to support you.

  • Colleen Schneider, Provincial Lead, Public, Patient, and Family Engagement
  • Suzie McLeod, Patient Engagement Consultant

Contact us at [email protected]

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