Interested in the types of engagements our staff and Partners work on? Check out some of our past engagements.
We work with patients and families in three ways to ensure a person-centred approach to care:
Through co-design - we collaborate with patients and families to plan and design services or improve the experience with services. Co-design recognizes that the patient and family is part of the team, with expertise in their lived experience.
In partnership - we partner directly with each individual patient and their family to deliver care services. Patients are involved as they wish to be in care delivery.
With input from - we collect input from patients and families through advisory committees, surveys, focus groups and informal day-to-day feedback.
Gynecologic Cancers: Your Journey: Patient partners identified a need for more information for people with gynecologic cancer. Partners worked with BC Cancer staff to build a comprehensive booklet about gynecologic cancer. The result is a guide for people with gynecologic cancer, made by people with gynecologic cancer.
Partner Forum at BC Cancer Summit 2022: The BC Cancer Patient Experience program was looking to improve our engagement process and better understand the needs of our partners. The Patient Experience Program hosted an in-person and virtual session with partners at the BC Cancer Summit in November 2022. We listened to our partners and came up with solutions to better meet their needs.
Early Symptom Indicators for Cancer Care Screening Program (EPICC):
EPICC was a 5 year, $1.2 million dollar Canadian Partnership Against Cancer sponsored quality improvement project. It developed a process to integrate repeat screening for physical symptoms and psychosocial issues throughout a patient's cancer care journey. The screening alerts the care team to symptoms and issues that are starting or getting worse.
Patient Reporting Information and Symptom Management (PRISM) form and Oncological Comprehensive Intake (OCI) form: A member of the care team reviews the intake survey with the patient and family to understand preferences, values and needs. This form also provides an early opportunity for patients to share any information about their goals of care and to self-identify their interest in further information. Moreover, this form assesses patients activities of daily living such as needing help with transportation. The care team can use this information to offer or arrange various transport services to help the patient get to and from their appointments.
Indigenous Patient Navigators (IPNs): For patients who identify as Indigenous, the IPNs deliver trauma-informed and culturally safe supportive care based on individual needs. IPNs may have coffee and conversation with a patient or hold their hand during a CT scan. IPNs also provide logistical support by arranging transportation from rural or remote communities and make sure to record information in plain language so patients can understand their care plan.
Remote patient monitoring (RPM) program: RPM is a model of virtual care that is generally used for patients with chronic illness. It uses biometric reading devices, online technology and questionnaires to monitor a patient's health status and vital signs, all from the comfort of their home. This information is sent back to the health care team. Patients who choose to participate in this program feel empowered to self-manage their care and have improved access to health care.
Team-based care patient experience survey. We ran this survey in early 2023 to evaluate the experiences of patients and families as we moved to a new model of care (team-based care).
Review of emotional and practical support handouts. We revised many of our emotional and practical support handouts. We updated the handouts and simplified the language. We wanted to make sure the handouts were easy to read and understand. Many patient and family partners gave useful and important feedback on these handouts. This resulted in handouts that better meet the needs of our patients and families.
Advance Care Planning needs assessment. We wanted to make sure our Advance Care Planning webpage had all the information patients and families need. We sent a survey to our Network of Patient & Family Partners asking them what information they wanted on the page and what would help them make an advance care plan. The results from this survey helped us re-design a more useful and easier to understand page.
