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Categories: My Experience, News & Events
The BC Patient Safety & Quality Council revealed the winners of its 2020 Quality Awards, and we’re thrilled to have our patient partners Betty Murray and Wendy Alston as the winner and runner-up of the Leadership in Advancing the Patient Voice category! We’re also happy to see amazing projects that contributed to improving the quality of care. Learn more about them in this post!
The Quality Awards were created by the Council to celebrate individuals and projects that significantly improved the quality of care in BC. In 2019, a total of eight projects and eight individuals were recognized for contributions to all areas of care, from preventing illness to providing care at the end of life.
The individual-based awards recognize the impact a single engaged person can have in improving the health care system, something we notice every day in the amazing work our partners do. That’s why we were delighted to have Betty Murray and Wendy Alston, two long-time patient partners, chosen as the winner and runner-up of the Leadership in Advancing the Patient Voice category, which celebrates patient, family and caregiver engagement. If you haven’t met them along their journey to improve health care in BC, we’d love for you to meet these two remarkable patient partners:
Betty Murray – Winner
Providence Health Care has a strong culture of person- and family-centred care in large part thanks to Betty’s diligent and passionate work as a patient partner within the organization over the past seven years. With a feisty personality and unbeatable determination, Betty goes beyond sharing her extensive experience as a patient by helping improve systems and guiding other patients to navigate health care and have their voices heard.
Read her full profile.
Wendy Alston – Runner-Up
After the heartbreak of her mother’s journey with prolonged delirium, Wendy decided to dedicate herself to making health care better for everyone. With empathy, solidarity and tireless work, she has helped transform care for delirium patients and their families and changed the culture of patient engagement at Eagle Ridge Hospital.
Read her full profile.
In addition to Betty’s and Wendy’s accomplishments, the Quality Awards also celebrated other individuals who helped improve patient experience and engagement, such as Jeff Harries, a physician working to change the way alcohol use disorder is perceived and treated; Kim Dixon, who has created innovative peer support initiatives for families whose loved ones experience mental illness and addiction; and Lisa Stewart, who transformed Vancouver Coastal Health’s approach to embedding quality improvement into daily practice.
There were also awards for projects such as Whole Community Palliative Rounds, an initiative which fosters high-quality palliative and end-of-life care for Interior Health’s largely rural population; Tele-Kidney Care for Patients in Northern BC, a suite of telehealth service improvements to expand access to high-quality kidney care in rural and remote Northern Health communities; and the Wishing Well in a Pediatric Intensive Care Unit at BC Children’s Hospital.
We want to congratulate the winners and runner-ups for their outstanding work, as all the awards and initiatives are an amazing source of inspiration and motivation!
Check out the full list of winners and runners-up.
