In this, the 10th and final instalment of our Empowering the Citizen Patient series, Dr. Mindy Smith, retired family physician and member of the Patient Advisory Committee in the Kootenay Boundary, highlights the crucial role patients play in shaping our health-care system. This article explores how sharing your insights and experiences can improve care, and provides practical ways to get involved in initiatives that make a difference for everyone in our community.
Patient viewpoints are critical to improving our health-care system. When dealing with chronic illnesses, surgical care, chronic pain, or caregiving, as patients we gain valuable insights into what works and what doesn’t with the care we receive.
Our experiences with health care are also shaped by many factors like age, income, culture, access to care, and interactions with primary health-care teams in rural and remote B.C. Health-care providers are not always trained to support team-based care including considerations of race, gender, and sexual orientation. These factors significantly influence our interactions within our complex health-care systems.
By sharing what we know and experience as patients and caregivers, we can help shape a health-care system that works better for everyone. The good news? There are many ways in which we can share our experiences with health-care providers. This article is focused on giving you the information and hopefully inspiration you need to get involved!
As highlighted in the first article of this series, our health-care system is evolving to meet the needs of a growing, aging population with increasingly complex needs. Many groups are assisting with this transition and are actively seeking patient partners to help improve quality of care. These groups include those overseeing health-care delivery, such as the Divisions of Family Practice, Collaborative Services Committee (CSC), and Primary Care Network (PCN) Steering Committee. Others like the Interior Health’s BC SUPPORT Unit include patients in research initiatives to find better treatments for specific health concerns.
Thousands of KB patients have made their concerns known by responding to surveys like the Patient Experience Survey. The Ministry of Health also launched the “Patients as Partners” initiative in 2009 with the motto, "Nothing about me, without me!” focusing on person- and family centred care, chronic disease management and patient engagement.
One great way to get involved is by joining the Patient Voices Network (PVN) administered by Health Quality BC. Launched by the Ministry of Health, the PVN connects health-care teams with patients, family members, and caregivers to ensure the patient’s voice is heard and that they are active participants in initiatives to improve our health-care system. PVN also offers support and resources to health-care professionals to ensure their improvement work reflects the needs and experiences of the people it impacts. Together, patients and providers have worked on projects ranging from improving emergency psychiatric care to enhancing access to medical imaging. You can explore these success stories and find out how to get involved through their website.
Other great work is happening at BC Cancer and Health Quality BC. BC Cancer integrates patient perspectives into cancer care and offers training for health-care providers who want to involve patients in their work. Health Quality BC focuses on collaborative projects such as improving care for patients with diabetes. They host an annual conference, the Quality Forum, that brings together B.C.'s health-care community and patients to share and discuss how to improve quality across the continuum of care. Health Quality BC leads the country in the internationally recognized “What Matters to You!” campaign that supports care providers in providing culturally safe care, free of prejudice and discrimination. Learn more about this campaign and share your story.
The Kootenay Boundary Patient Advisory Committee and Community (KBPACC) has been active since 2018 to provide patient input to local health-care organizations and practitioners to improve our local, rural system. We’ve advised on initiatives such as the roll-out of the KB Primary Care Network (PCN), the Lower Columbia Community Health Centre, and PRIMA Health to improve access to care. This past year, we’ve focused on creating educational articles for patients (you’re reading one of them now!) The Empowering the Citizen Patient articles cover topics from caregiving to supports for patients without a primary care provider. In the coming year, we’ll be developing navigation maps to help people prepare for surgery. Those interested in learning more should visit our website at kbpacc.ca.
We hope you’ve enjoyed reading our Empowering the Citizen Patient articles. Patients play a crucial role in solving the health-care challenges we face. We hope these articles have provided useful information to you and perhaps inspired some to get more involved in self-care and in participating as a patient partner. KBPACC’s ultimate objective is to ensure all KB residents become healthier and can access the care they need when they need it.
We sincerely thank the Nelson Star and other Black Press Media outlets for their invaluable support in sharing and promoting each article.
