We establish close relationships with our health care partners so that we can work together to identify and create engagement opportunities for patients.
To do so, you should know how your opportunity will be engaging patient partners as well as the level at which you are asking them to participate.
What to Expect
We support your patient engagement efforts by helping you:
- Find patient partners
- Receive ongoing support
- Participate in learning opportunities
- Develop skills helpful for patient engagement
- Make connections
Engagement opportunities are adapted to their health care partners’ needs and objectives, but they usually follow these steps:
Preparation
Prior to being matched with an opportunity, our patient partners receive an orientation, training and ongoing support. This helps to prepare them to have a meaningful impact once they participate in an opportunity.
Creating an Opportunity
Taking time to set up your opportunity and ensure your team is ready to engage patients provides a foundation for meaningful patient engagement. We help health care partners clarify the aim of their opportunity, how it will engage a patient, and criteria for identifying patient partners with relevant interests and experiences. We also encourage health care partners to include more than one patient.
We then post the opportunity on our website and include it in an engagement opportunities newsletter that is sent to our patient partners every Tuesday. Typically the opportunity is open for two weeks. Interested patient partners fill out an online form, answering questions that help the health care partner identify if they will be a good fit for the opportunity.
Choosing Patient Partners
We send the list of candidates to the health care partner and then provide assistance to determine which one best fits the opportunity’s needs. We then host a discussion so that the health care partner and patient partners can meet each other, discuss the opportunity and ask questions.
Closing the Loop
Along the way we collect feedback so that we can continuously improve our own processes; feedback is also passed to patient and health care partners to aid their participation in future engagement opportunities. Click here for more information on closing the loop.
