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Member, Trauma Quality Structure Committees

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Open to Vancouver Island Region, Patient partners from across the Island Health region

Last updated

Trauma, and the continuum of care for those involved in trauma, is broad: it includes injury and violence prevention; sexual assault services; trauma injury care activities; and rehabilitation.  Island Health is redesigning its Trauma Program governance structure and seeks the patient voice to ensure that the system is designed in a way that meets the needs of patients, families and communities. If you have personal or family experience with trauma care, read on to see if this is the right fit for you!

Open to: Patient partners from across the Island Health region

Lead Organization or Department

Island Health, Trauma Services

Aim

Island Health is designing a new trauma governance structure, to oversee the development and delivery of trauma services and operations within the health authority. The proposed structure includes four program area sub-committees, two geographic quality committees, and one regional quality council that all feed up and report into the Trauma Steering Committee (see diagram). Patient partner participation is needed in all levels of the structure, to participate in discussions and planning activities related to injury prevention, trauma injured care activities, sexual assault services, system design and improvement, allocation of resources, and prioritising activities using evidence based information. Patient partners will be asked to participate by joining one or two committees, and contributing to decision-focused discussions in an effort to ensure that the trauma care system is designed in a way that meets the needs of patients, families and communities.

Level of Engagement

This opportunity is at the level of involve on the spectrum of engagement. The promise to you is that the health care partner will work with you to ensure that your ideas and concerns are reflected in recommendations and provide feedback on how your input affected the decision.

Eligibility

  • Experience (personal or family) receiving trauma care services would be an asset
  • Previous experience in administration or committee work would be an asset
  • Have familiarity with medical terminology (this is an asset)
  • Comfortable sharing their experiences and perspectives with large groups of health care providers and administrators
  • At a place in personal recovery process where the participant is distanced enough from the trauma event and subsequent care that participation in the engagement would not be likely to cause stress, hardship or emotional suffering.
Please note: this opportunity is not open to patient partners who are currently employed by Island Health The placement process for this opportunity may include an informal interview between the volunteer and the health care partner. Applicants must have previously attended a PVN orientation session and completed the Volunteer Agreement. If you have not attended an orientation session but you are interested in this opportunity, please contact Kira Tozer directly to see if accommodations may be possible.

Logistics

  • Date/Time: Meetings are currently scheduled from October 2018-July 2019. Meeting requirements will vary based on “role” (see below).  Typically, each role will require sitting on two different committees, each meeting 4-6 times per year for 1-2 hours.
  • Location:   In person participation is preferred, but teleconference participation from home, or videoconferencing from an island health facility is also an option.
  • Commitment: 1 year with the possibility of extending.
Roles & Specific Eligibility Criteria: There are 5 different roles open for patient partners.  Please refer to structure diagram for additional context.
  • North Island Patient Partner Role
    • Vacancies: 1-2
    • Unique Eligibility: Live in Geography 1 or 2
    • Membership & Meeting Frequency:
      • Local Centre/North Island Quality Committee (meets 4 times per year, usually in Nanaimo)
      • Regional Trauma Quality Council (meets 4 times per year in Victoria & Nanaimo
  • South Island Patient Partner Role
    • Vacancies: 1-2
    • Unique Eligibility: Live in Geography 3 or 4
    • Membership & Meeting Frequency:
      • Local South Island Quality Commaittee (meets 4 times per year in Victoria & Duncan)
      • Regional Trauma Quality Council (meets 4 times per year in Victoria & Nanaimo)
  • Forensic Nurse Examination Patient Partner Role
    • Vacancies: 1-2
    • Unique Eligibility: Personal or family experience or familiarity with the forensic nurse exam process and/or Island Health sexual assault services.
    • Membership & Meeting Frequency:
      • Forensic Nurse Examinors SubCommittee (meets 6 times per year in Victoria)
  • Injury & Violence Prevention Patient Partner Role
    • Vacancies: 1-2
    • Unique Eligibility: Personal or family experience with youth injury or injury prevention work. Familiarity with the A.R.T.Y. program would be an asset.
    • Membership & Meeting Frequency:
      • Injury and Violence Prevention Subcommittee (meets 6 times per year in Victoria or Nanaimo)
  • Quality Measures & Trauma Program Patient Partner Role
    • Vacancies: 1-2
    • Unique Eligibility: Interest and previous experience working with data, quality assessment tools & measurement frameworks would be an asset.
    • Membership & Meeting Frequency:
      • Quality Measures Subcommittee (meets 6 times per year in Victoria)
      • Trauma Program Subcommitee (meets 6 times per year in Victoria or Nanaimo)

Reimbursement

Pre-approved transportation & parking costs to attend meetings will be reimbursed by Island Health.

Background

Island Health Trauma Services The goal of Island Health Trauma Services is to plan, implement and develop an integrated and accredited regional trauma services program encompassing all aspects of trauma care, from prevention to pre-hospital care, inter-facility transport, acute care and rehabilitation. Island Health Trauma Quality Structures The new proposed quality structure includes 8 councils and committees (see diagram for context).  A brief description has been provided below.  Terms of reference for the groups are currently in development and will be shared with selected patient partners.
  1. Trauma Steering Committee. Comprised of senior executives.  Responsible for ensuring comprehensive authority is maintained to support trauma system leaders and maintain system infrastructure, planning, oversight and future development.
  2. Regional Trauma Quality Council. Comprised of trauma program leaders from across the health authority. Responsible for meeting the standards & requirements of current evidenced based practices; monitoring quality improvement effectiveness & key performance indicators; reviewing cases with a regional or provincial impact, etc.
  3. Local South Island Trauma Quality Committee. Comprised of trauma program leaders & physicians from the south island.  Responsible for monitoring local quality effectiveness; reviewing cases with a local impact; developing guidelines, pathways and protocols for local area, etc.
  4. Local Central & North Island Trauma Quality Committee. Comprised of trauma program leaders & physicians from the central & north island.  Responsible for monitoring local quality effectiveness; reviewing cases with a local impact; developing guidelines, pathways and protocols for local area, etc.
  5. Quality Measures Subcommittee. Comprised of trauma managers and data analysts.  Responsible for identifying benchmarks and indicators; developing a data dashboard and trauma centre self-assessment tool for accreditation standards; develop & disseminate annual reports, etc.
  6. Forensic Nurse Examinors Subcommittee. Comprised of FNE coordinators and various operations leads.  Responsible for: meeting Ministry of Health policy standards; supporting FNE programs in urgent care centres; improve awareness of and accesss to sexual assult services; improve skills & sensitivity of clinical staff in responding to sexual assult and domestic violence, etc.
  7. Injury and Violence Prevention Subcommittee. Comprised of Injury Prevention coordinators and various operations leads. Responsible for: interventions for injury prevention programs based on intentional and unintentional injury mechanisms; performing needs assessment on public information re: injury prevention; evaluate based injury and violence prevention initiatives; establish a resource centre, etc.
  8. Trauma Subcommittee. Comprised of Truama coordinators and program representatives. Responsible for: transportation of trauma patients; stakeholder engagement; optimizing IHealth technology; development of clinical practice guideline and imaging guidelines; develop a trauma education strategy, etc.
BC Trauma Stats Traumatic injury refers to physical injuries of sudden onset and severity which require immediate medical attention to prevent loss of life or limb.
  • Major trauma is the principal cause of death for people under age 45 in Canada
  • Over 700,000 people are injured yearly in BC. Of these, approximately 1800 die, 9000 suffer permanent disability, 27,000 are hospitalized and an estimated 41,000 potential years of life are lost.
  • The yearly cost of injury exceeds $2.8 billion in BC
  • The most common cause of injury in BC is falls. Many falls – especially in older adults – result in minor injuries that require hospitalization
  • Falls and transport-related (car, motorcycle, ATV, bike, boat, watercraft, plane crashes) are the main causes of moderate-to-severe injury hospitalizations in BC
  • Island Health saw a 6.8 per cent increase in trauma-related injuries in 2014/2015 over the previous year. Twenty-three per cent of its population is seniors and the region has the highest number of people over aged 75 in the province.

Health Care Partner Contact Information

Kira Tozer
Engagement Leader, Patient & Public Engagement | Vancouver Island
250.888.4525
ktozer@bcpsqc.ca

From Our Community

Jeanette Foreman

Northwest Quality Improvement Lead, Quality and Innovation, Northern Health

Jeanette Forman

PVN has really helped us engage with patient partners to improve health services at Northern Health.  It is more and more becoming the norm to include patients in the design, delivery and evaluation of health services.  PVN education and supports, involving patient partners, have enabled us to develop the capacity to include the patient voice to make care better and achieve better health outcomes.