Changing the Conversation

[A Former User]

Great to see you here Claude.

The council sounds interesting, and it remains to be seen how much influence it will have. Thinking of it from a recruiting standpoint (my past occupation) I was wondering how easy it will be to represent the population of Ontario with a council of only 15 people.

When you need to include unheard voices, ethnic diversity, youth and age, gender, urban and rural, patient and caregiver that's a lot of diversity in a small group.

Most likely they will have more respondents who are urban, older white women patients than any other group - that's a drawback. Of course if I always gave up so easily then I wouldn't be a patient advisor now.

[A Former User]

In one of my earlier blog posts about how the Ministry of Health in Ontario, I talk about how the Ministry could leverage the advisors that already exist (http://bit.ly/1ovwClN).

It seems, however, that every healthcare group has decided to create their own council replicating the silos in healthcare. HELP!!! As a patient/caregiver advisors, this is NOT what I would like to see.

Many of us advise in more than one organization so we are already "cross silo". And now with PAN, we are able to learn from others who are advising in different orgs and different jurisdictions. Different provinces do patient engagement differently like BC with their Patient Voices Network (PVN) or Quebec which provides separate budget money to patient advisory councils directly and so on. Lots to learn and share.

[A Former User]

Great to see you here as well Annette, I think you hit the nail on the head regarding representation. The interesting thing about recruiting for general members is that they will be drawing up to 50 applicants at random and select the 14 from there (the 15th is the Chair). I wonder how they are going to fill the gaps should they not draw a someone from that community. I applied for the membership but don't like the odds as I suspect that there will be many who put their names forward. Hopefully, the members will be a mix of "newbies" and experienced advisors, this format works really good with HQO PFPAC

The Chair position is being coordinated by a head hunting organization with full resumes expected so this tells me they are looking for someone with experience. I recently found out that the CEO of Champlain LHIN is part of the selection team for the Chair and maybe more CEOs are involved.

So so let's see what happens.

[A Former User]

Good point Alies, this is my hope for PAN as well. The Patients First legislation includes each LHIN having a PFAC and this may be the beginning of "uniting" the various councils. Should I be selected to be part of the Minister's PFAC (in whatever roll I play) I will bring up connecting with each of the 14 new councils and build the network from a regional perspective. Let me know your thoughts on this, it's very much in the contemplation stage.

i have put a lot of thought into building a Community of Practice here in the Champlain LHIN and it takes a lot of time and resources, both of which I have had very little of these past few years but with PAN and other initiatives being considered, I hope to take advantage of these opportunities and unite the Patient and Family councils.

[A Former User]

Claude, so glad you agree about having some kind of connection among all the PFACs.

The tendency is for healthcare orgs to replicate their siloed structure. We have a unique opportunity to urge a different structure for the PFACs in Ontario (and hopefully in other provinces too).

I think the LHIN (health authority) PFACs should have 2 members each on a Ministry council (28 members). I also think the LHIN Councils should have reps from the existing PFACs within their area. These could be additional to the main PFACs or part of them -- thoughts?

In Ontario there is the drive to create a "community" set of services with the sub-regions within the LHINs. This just begs for a companion PFAC but hopefully drawn from the existing ones within each region.

At the least, we can push for meetings/conferences of PFAC members so we can talk to each other about the issues we are tackling; what works and what doesn't. This would share the knowledge and experiences we are having rather than re-inventing the wheel.

Thoughts?

[A Former User]

I agree on the PFAC councils having a connection, maybe even a conference which we could 'magically' expand to include patents who are interested in getting involved.

All of the LHINs share the same website format and I looked at the TC LHIN today. The Community engagement section was strangely passive, with all of the events and meetings being in the past.

The hospital Advisory Council I am in is very focused on the community members hearing about the items on the agenda, not so much on getting freeform input. They have an evaluation of the meeting at the end with little handheld devices and people usually are unanimous in agreeing it was a good use of our time, and we knew our function etc.

The time commitment is 5 meetings that are 2 hours long per year. That is not really meaningful in my opinion.

[A Former User]

Hi - Newb. here! This may not pertain to this thread, but I'm jumping in as hopefully there will be many more new people joining PAN and will likely have similar question(s) - Where would I even start if I wanted to get involved in a LHIN PFAC? I am in a specific geographical area, but I don't have a 'home hospital' that I wish to support or more accurately, wants PFAC support (at this stage).

As I am not 'affiliated' at this point with an organization other than PAN, so have no 'connections' as it were. I also don't come at it from one perspective, i.e patient or caregiver, strictly mental health or physical health (I prefer 'health', although my experience includes both).

[A Former User]

Hi Gail. You don't need to have any direct links to a hospital so no worries there. My suggestion is that you contact your LHIN and find out if they have begun forming their PFAC (or some have had one for some time). Some LHINs also have a patient representTive and he/she would have some details. The LHINs have links to all their health services they fund and you can go through it to see if there is any connections to your experiences, contact them to enquirer about being an advisor. Good luck

[A Former User]

Absolutely agree Annette, a regular gathering would be beneficial. Although I have submitted my application as Chair for the Minister's PFAC, there still isn't a lot of details about next steps. Etc.. I do know the Ministry staff is conducting consultations throughout the province on creating PFACs in the LHINs, what this will end up looking like is up in the air now. I think that once a Chair is selected and the member selection process is complete, we may hear more of how will it link the LHINs PFACs. Closing date for applications as a general member is April 18 I believe so there is still some time before there are going to be answers.

[A Former User]

All the best on your aplication to be Chair, Claude. I applied to be a member, so will see what happens.

At my local hospital they seemed to be adament that I should be a community member.

Being on the Health Quality Ontario list of possible volunteers gives me lots of opportunity to have input into initiatives (with no compensation). On the plus side I have a better idea of issues in the province through doing that.

The part of being an advisor that I enjoy is taking what I learn from various areas and organizations and putting them together. Since I don't have a specific focus I can concentrate what I like.