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Because your voice matters.

Celebrating a Decade of the Patient Voices Network

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2020 marks an exciting milestone for the Patient Voices Network: 10 years since the network began! Read on to learn more about how we’ll be celebrating all year long.

Celebrating a decade of the Patient Voices Network

In January 2010, the Patient Voices Network welcomed its original patient partners, hosted its inaugural orientation, and, in March 2010, participated in its first engagement opportunity. In 2020, PVN will celebrate 10 years of bringing together patient and health care partners to improve our health care system. Join us as we celebrate with a kickoff at the Quality Forum in late February, as well as blogs and commemorative events throughout the year.

A Bit of History

The Patient Voices Network was created by the Ministry of Health as part of its Patients as Partners strategy in 2010. The network has not always been administered by the BC Patient Safety & Quality Council – before 2016, it was managed by an organization called ImpactBC.

Over the past 10 years, we’ve seen incredible growth in the level of engagement in the network. There are more and more opportunities for patients to be directly involved in improving health care services and shaping the patient experience. Just this past year, over 300 new patient partners joined the network, and we supported over 250 engagement opportunities with over 500 patient partners participating.

Evaluating Our Impact

So how do we know that patient involvement is really making a difference in health care? Our patient partners are telling us through their comments:

Since I first joined PVN, I feel that patient engagement has moved from having a ‘minor impact’ and being less common to where it is now. It is on its way to having a ‘major impact’ and has become much more widely accepted.

The biggest change I’ve seen in acceptance is amongst higher-level administrators and decision-makers, which is such a positive change!

These positive comments are coming not only from our patient partners, but also from our health care partners:

Patient partners assisted in helping us make decisions about programming based on their perspective. Their experiences have guided us in determining where to put our focus and how to identify gaps or poor service areas.

We’ve also heard that the network is meeting the needs of both patient and health care partners through comments such as:

PVN is excellent at facilitating the patient engagement process. Their Engagement Leaders are clear in their communication and strong in their support.

The data we collect is another way to make sure we’re on the right track. In a recent survey*, 91% of the health care partners responded that the network was having a positive impact on the patient experience, while 86% of patient partners felt that their voice was heard during their engagement opportunities, and 73% felt that their participation influenced the outcome of engagements.

We’re proud of the impact PVN has had on our health care system and we look forward to the work we’ll do together in the future. Stay tuned and join us throughout the year as we celebrate our 10-year anniversary!

Author: Tammy Hoefer

Tammy is the Director, Patient & Public Engagement at the BC Patient Safety & Quality Council, which administers PVN.

From Our Community

Ovey Yeung

Patient Partner, Vancouver

Ovey Yeung

Being involved in the Patient Voices Network has broadened my understanding of the system and helped me empathize with health care challenges and limitations. What matters to me is to walk away feeling that my experience matters, that I matter!