Posted
Closed
Commitment: Long-term
Connection method: Virtual
Open to Provincial Region
Posted
Volunteer Opportunity
The BC Centre for Palliative Care is leading a provincial advisory group creating a nursing expert opinion statement. The statement will help nurses make the best decisions when supporting friend/ family caregivers to give medications by injection for people at home with advanced illness. We are seeking two patient partners to join the advisory group.
Lead Organization/Department
BC Centre for Palliative Care
Aim
• We aim to provide an evidence informed resource for nurses who are supporting friend/family caregivers of palliative patients who need injected medications at home to manage their symptoms.
• The patient partners will share their experiences and perspectives to help shape the process and documents. Patient partners will participate in a minimum of 3 virtual meetings between March 1 & August 31 2023.
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
Open to patient partners across the province who:
• Have previous/current experience as a caregiver of a person at home with an advanced illness or near end of life, helping with their medications. Please note, priority for involvement will be given to people who have experience with giving medication in a syringe by injection
• Are comfortable sharing their experience
• Have access to a phone (for a phone meeting) or computer/tablet or smart phone (to access virtual meetings via Zoom)
• Have access to email
As connection and relationship building is important to the BC Centre for Palliative Care, informal meet and greets will form part of the selection process for short listed patient partners.
If you have a strong interest in this work but have not yet completed a PVN orientation and Patient Partner Commitments, are unsure if your experience is a good fit or feel another format of engagement would work better with your availability, please contact Cassy Mitchell.
Logistics
• Number of vacancies: 2
• Date and Time: A minimum of 3 virtual meetings, each being 60-90 minutes in duration will be held during office hours (9am-5pm) between March 1 & August 31 2023. The patient partners will be consulted for their availability when scheduling meeting times. Approximately 30 minutes of pre-reading prior to meetings is anticipated
• Location: Online meetings via Zoom or phone participation
• Commitment: Up to 6 months
Reimbursement
No out of pocket expenses are anticipated for this engagement opportunity. However, if you meet the eligibility criteria, but have concerns about your ability to participate, please contact Cassy Mitchell cmitchell@bcpsqc.ca to see if support options are available. We are always seeking to better understand and reduce barriers to participation.
Background
The BC Centre for Palliative Care is developing an expert opinion statement, having identified a gap in support for nurses in this area. The statement will be for nurses who are caring for palliative patients at home and, need to make decisions about preparing medications in syringes for injection (pre-drawing syringes) for friend/family caregivers to administer when caring for a person with advanced illness.
A consensus process will be used to develop the statement that includes meetings of the advisory group and online surveys with an expert panel. The advisory group and expert panel include health care providers who have experience working with people with palliative needs at home and understand the relevant factors and considerations that need to be weighed when nurses make a decision about whether to pre-draw medications for subcutaneous injection by friend/family caregivers.
As a patient partner on this project, you will meet with the project team to provide your input/perspectives on project documents and online surveys and participate in advisory group meetings.
We recognize that re-living a person’s palliative journey can trigger memories. If additional emotional support is needed, we can link patient partners with hospice society grief support through the BC Hospice Palliative Care Association Network.
