Marion Woodward Lecture: Strategies and Tools for Putting Patients First

Mounting evidence demonstrates that engaging patients and the public as partners in healthcare decisions at both individual and community levels leads to better outcomes. However, patients and the public are not adequately engaged across a spectrum of health services. Dr. Dawn Stacey will discuss evidence-based strategies and tools for supporting active patient and public involvement to put ‘patients first’ when making decisions about healthcare policies, research, organization governance, and direct care.

Dr. Stacey RN, PhD, CON(C), holds a Research Chair in Knowledge Translation to Patients and is a Professor in the School of Nursing at the University of Ottawa. She is the Scientific Director of the Patient Decision Aids Research Group at the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute. She was inducted as a member of the College of the Royal Society of Canada in recognition of her research. She leads the Cochrane Review of Patient Decision Aids, and co-chairs the Steering Committee for the International Patient Decision Aid Standards Collaboration. Dr. Stacey’s internationally recognized research aims to understand, measure, and evaluate implementation of decision coaching and decision support tools for patients and healthcare professionals. She leads national and international initiatives to synthesize effective interventions and develop standards for translating scientific knowledge into user-friendly tools. Her research findings are used in clinical practice, continuing education for healthcare professionals, and health policy in Canada, Chile, the United States, United Kingdom, and Australia.