Word in the Network: Insights from Don Grant

Patient Partner Don Grant shares some insights through his ‘pandemic road trip’ as he talks about his involvement with PVN and ideas for creating a central repository of shared resources to reduce duplication and enhance person- and family-centred care.

My Pandemic Road Trip

I’m a senior who cycles a lot more than I did before the pandemic. My pandemic road trip lets me sleep in my own bed every night as I’ve cumulatively plied over 4,000 kilometres of Peachland asphalt since mid-March.

Seven years earlier I retired from a business career in the medical field and with my newfound free time, I’ve found great satisfaction volunteering through PVN. Two of my PVN roles have inadvertently illuminated a unique perspective on the largely untapped potential of adding value by sharing resources.

Here’s an example: HeartHub.ca was created by patients, for patients and their families to make the right choices at the right time to help make heart treatment choices.

Meanwhile, hospitals and cardiac departments create their own patient info packages that largely duplicate the work done by HeartHub.ca. This needless replication no doubt permeates all manner of medical disciplines and the good news is, it’s fixable.

As a solution, let’s celebrate a central repository of shared resources. This library must be fun, graphic and most importantly, promoted!

Pharmaceutical companies extoll their products’ unique benefits, ad infinitum. Let’s use this model to create and run a sustained provincial roadshow promoting the library to reduce duplication and enhance person and family-centred care.

Meanwhile, I’m still spinning wheels and oiling my chain along my very own pandemic road trip.