Member and Advisor, Paramedics and Palliative Care Project Working Group

BC Emergency Health Services is committed to providing appropriate palliative and end-of-life care according to the patient’s wishes. Paramedics require the appropriate knowledge, tools, and support to do this successfully. We need your insight and experience in order to best understand how we can support patients that call 911 from home and wish to be treated in place, rather than transported to the Emergency Department.

Open to: Patient partners across the province

Lead Organization or Department

BC Emergency Health Services - Department of Strategy and Transformation

Aim

Many palliative patients wish to be managed at home when they call 911. At present, paramedics lack the knowledge and tools to do this and therefore the vast majority of palliative patients are resuscitated according to standard treatment guidelines and transported to the ED. This comes at great emotional cost to the patient and family, and often results in unwanted transfers to the hospital. We are looking for patient partners to contribute to the development of a model of palliative and end of life care provided by a paramedic. They will be asked to share what their expectations would be in an interaction with ambulance services and how we can improve their experience during end of life crisis moments. They will be critical in informing the communication and messaging that we will be making available to our palliative patients and families prior to, during and after our visits. We will be asking our patient partners to review and contribute their recommendations to the overall design, process, communications, and post care survey’s that will impact the patient and families of palliative end of life care.

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 involve patients in planning and design phases to ensure ideas or concerns are considered and reflected in alternatives and recommendations.

Eligibility

Experience with caring for palliative or end-of-life patients at home, patients with a life threatening condition, in combination with having to access 911 for assistance. 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: 5
• Meetings will be held every month during business hours and will last approximately 2 hours at the BCEHS offices in the Vancouver-Broadway and Renfrew area, at 2955 Virtual Way, Vancouver (if patient partners live in the Lower Mainland area)
• The format of this work will be a combination of working group meetings, focus groups and 1:1 sessions
• Focus groups may be held 2-4 times across the 4 years of the project
• 1:1 interviews or calls may occur randomly throughout the project
• Teleconferencing ability will be made available for all sessions

Reimbursement

Approved expenses related to transportation (mileage up to 60 km each direction, parking up to $20/day or transit) will be reimbursed by the health care partner.

Background

BC Emergency Health Services (BCEHS) received federal grant funding to create the Paramedics and Palliative Care project. Our co-sponsor is the BC Centre for Palliative Care. BCEHS executives are working with the Ministry of Health to ensure patients can be treated at home, clinical consult for the proposed clinical practice guidelines is extensive and BCEHS management is communicating with other health care stakeholders on ways to share patient information. Participants in the working group will include:

• BCEHS paramedics (advanced care paramedics, paramedic specialists, educators)
• Medical director (as required)
• Project lead and business analyst from BCEHS
• Other health partners will include palliative physicians, clinical nurse specialists, palliative nurse clinicians, and home care nurses

The project has four phases and goes over the course of four years, completing in 2022. We are in the initial phase now which is primarily focused on developing models of care with our health partners across the province.

Health Care Partner Contact Information

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