Practical Tools and Resources

How To Checklists

This document provides a detailed checklist for planning, preparing and conducting engagement sessions with patient and family partners. The list identifies a number of things to consider when partnering with patients and families such as: the time and location of meetings, setting expectations, provide materials in advance of meetings, follow up with partners after meeting to debrief.

Download Planning and Conducting Engagement Sessions

Patient and Family Partnership in Quality Improvement Examples

Across St. Joseph’s there are many examples for how patients and family partners have been engaged in quality improvement initiatives and program planning. Below we have listed a few examples:

Admission Process at Mount Hope Centre for Long Term Care

Based on survey feedback, there was a need to improve the admission process at Mount Hope, specifically to improve family caregiver experience. A working group was formed with staff members and family caregivers to work together to improve the process. Through a series of five meetings, family caregivers and staff worked together to identified areas for improvements and co-create the solutions together. Some of the improvements to the process included: creating a pre-arrival email that provided residents and family caregivers with adequate information about the move-in day process; creating a video that residents and families could watch prior to arrival, and a new process for labelling resident clothing that would improve the wait time. Staff and family caregivers were happy with the results.

Security Clothing

The security guards at St. Joseph’s were undergoing a uniform change. Rather than selecting the new uniforms on their own, leaders engaged with multiple councils across the organization to get feedback on look and colour. With patient and family feedback, staff learned that they wanted shirts that blended with the vest, to minimize the authoritative appearance. Without this engagement, we wouldn’t have learned what is important to patients and family caregivers.

Meet Andre

Andre is an older adult and recent patient of the Geriatric Rehabilitation Unit at Parkwood Institute who is involved as a Patient Partner with a quality improvement project focused on cafeteria renovations. Andre uses a wheelchair to ambulate on days when he is experiencing higher levels fatigue or instability. He travels via paratransit when a family caregiver is not available to accompany him. When planning her first engagement meeting, staff member Stephanie considers the following to ensure Andre is able to participate fully:

Providing Andre with background information about the purpose project in a senior friendly format (e.g., size 14 print) so he can familiarize himself in advance
Checking in about restrictions around meeting time to allow for any daily care routines or important appointments
Providing advance notice (e.g., 1-2 weeks) of the meeting date and time so that Andre can confirm his transportation arrangements
Booking the meeting in a room with adequate space for ease of movement in a wheelchair
Asking Andre upon arrival if he prefers to pull his wheelchair up to the table or transition to a stable chair with arms that has been provided
Monitoring the conversation during the meeting and actively inviting Andre to share his thoughts if he seems hesitant to jump into the conversation