Focus Group Participant, Developing a Basic or Personal Care Standard for Patients Admitted to Acute Care

Want to share your point of view on personal care (e.g. bathing, hair care, and shaving) for patients in acute units? Join this focus group as Providence Health starts working on a new initiative.

Open to: Patient partners across the province

Lead Organization or Department

Providence Health Care - Professional Practice Office

Aim

Mouth care, bathing, peri-care, getting out of bed, shaving, hair care, clean bedding and eating are example of activities that might be called personal care. At this time, there is no standard understanding of when it is the patient’s responsibility to complete this personal care, and when it is part of nursing care. Providence Health Care seeks to better understand patients’ and families’ expected standards for personal care and how nurses can best approach conversations about a patient’ capacity to perform their own care, or discuss delays in care when there may be limited choice in terms of nursing time for care. This focus group is the first step for an initiative that will help nurses approach personal care in a respectful and supportive way, mindful of patient and family expectations.

Level of Engagement

This opportunity is at the level of consult on the spectrum of engagement. The promise to you is that the health care partner will listen to and acknowledge your ideas and concerns, and provide feedback on how your input affected the decision.

Eligibility

• Preference is for patients and family members of patients who were admitted to acute care for two or more days. Experience does not need to be limited to a Providence Health Care site.
• Preference is to recruit a diverse mix of patient partners (gender, age, cultural background, etc.)
• Patient partners should feel comfortable telling their story and talking about their personal care values in a small group format

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 Karen Estrin directly.

Logistics

• Vacancies: 6
• A focus group will be scheduled based on participant availability (not restricted to business hours) in early-mid November.
• Participation can be in person or via teleconference
• The intention is to hold one or two more meetings with this focus group after the first one, to verify what was heard and collected, to potentially ask additional questions, and to get feedback on inclusion of this information in guidelines. Preference is for patient partners who can attend more than one meeting – minimum two meetings (in person/phone)

Reimbursement

Preapproved expenses related to local travel (i.e. transit, parking up to $18/day, approved mileage) to attend in person meetings will be reimbursed by Providence Health Care. No expenses anticipated for patient partners who participate by teleconference.

Background

Providence Health Care believes the provision of basic personal care is variable and requires a clearer standard of expectation. Professional Practice is planning to meet with patient and family members exclusively first, and then meet with nurses and allied health care members to understand their vision/understanding of personal care. Next steps in this work will include bringing a more diverse stakeholder group together that would include patients, family members, nurses, allied health, medical staff and organizational leadership. This focus group is a first step toward improving the provision of personal care.

Health Care Partner Contact Information

Karen Estrin
Engagement Leader, Patient and Public Engagement | Lower Mainland & Sunshine Coast
604.668.8245
kestrin@bcpsqc.ca