Patient Partners, Surgical Patient Education

Use your lived experience in surgery to help shape patient education through on-going feedback and patient focus groups. We are seeking patient and families to be involved in helping develop images for surgical patients to help understand their surgical journey!

Open to: Patient partners in the Lower Mainland & Fraser Valley

Lead Organization or Department

Fraser Health-Surgical Services

Aim

The Royal Columbian Hospital Surgery Patient Education Project is updating their patient education materials. Patient partners will provide feedback into images, messaging and testing of education materials that will make it easier for patients to understand their surgical journey. Patient and family involvement is needed to participate in a one-time focus group and telephone follow-up to help develop images for new and improved Fraser Health surgery patient education information. The goal is to create images that will make it easier for patients to understand their surgical journey. Feedback is needed for: • image design • testing images to ensure that they are detailed enough to be clear and understandable to everyone • providing ongoing consultation as we edit and finalize the graphic images.

Level of Engagement

This opportunity is at the level of collaborate on the spectrum of engagement. The promise to you is that the research partner will work together with you to formulate solutions and incorporate your advice and recommendations into the decisions to the maximum extent possible.

Eligibility

Patient partners of all literacy levels are encouraged to apply. It would be ideal to have patients who have experienced a surgical procedure and others who have not. The targeted audience is the adult patient over the age of 17. If you have a strong interest in this work but have not yet completed a PVN orientation and Volunteer Agreement, are unsure if your experience is a good fit or feel another format of engagement would work better with your availability, please contact the engagement leader directly.

Logistics

• Vacancies: 12-15
• Format: In person focus group at Central City in Surrey
• Date/time: February 5, 1-3pm

Reimbursement

There will be no parking expenses. Patients may require reimbursement for skytrain costs. Any requests for supporting travel via cab would have to be approved prior to the patient partner's arrival.

Background

The Royal Columbian Hospital Surgery Patient Education Project has involved the creation of up to date and accurate information (applying principles of health literacy) on the following pamphlets:

• Preparing for your surgery and hospital stay
• Preparing for your day surgery
• Surgery Specific pamphlets (such as general surgery, vascular, neurosurgery, orthopedics, gynecology, and urology...)

The team would like to create visual surgical pathways/journeys for visual learners to help people understand their surgical journey. Once completed, the team will provide hyperlinks to the Patient Education Catalogue with selected exemplars of the revised surgery patient education material.

Health Care Partner Contact Information

Jami Brown
Engagement Leader, Patient and Public Engagement | Fraser Valley
604.510.0449
jbrown@bcpsqc.ca