Member, Maternity Care Team

Interior Health and maternity care providers would love to hear patient perspectives to help design a new model of maternity care over the course of several in-person meetings. This new model will continue to support the amazing care that parents and babies receive today and ensure this level of excellence continues into the future for those living in Kamloops and our surrounding communities.

Open to: Patient partners in Kamloops

Lead Organization or Department

Interior Health - Maternity Care

Aim

The goal of the initiative is to look at new ways to provide Kamloops maternity care for parents and babies. This team will look at how we can continue to provide sustainable high level maternity care when pregnant, during birth, and after birth care. A patient survey has been completed and the next step is to have patient partners involved in the planning and idea generation part of this work. We need to know: what is important to families, what is working well, and what is not working well. The role of the patient partners will be to inform, brainstorm, and validate what may or may not work going forward.

Level of Engagement

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

Eligibility

The work that we are undergoing would benefit from our patient partners having just received maternity care (prenatal, birth, and post birth care) in Kamloops in the last couple of years. We will be working in large interactive groups, being comfortable with that would be good. Patient partners could be from some of our outlying communities as well and received some of their maternity care in Kamloops.

Logistics

Number of vacancies: 2-3 Location, Date, Time and Frequency: First meeting has just been set for November 22nd in Kamloops from 1700 to 2030. The first half hour is dinner and registration. Next meeting will be in December and the date has not been decided on yet. Initiative Format: Working group/ Committees Connection Method: In-Person Commitment: One week to six months

Reimbursement

Pre-approved travel and parking expenses will be reimbursed and meals will be provided.

Background

We know that great maternity care is being provided in Kamloops, however the current way we are structured may not support us to continue this level of care into the future. We have a very passionate group from across the spectrum of care who would like to look at how we can do things differently. Many other communities in BC have taken on this same work and we hope to also learn from them. Supporting and caring for families with babies is extremely important and we are eager to begin this work. Currently the only risk is that if we do not find a way to work differently it will make it challenging for our care providers to provide the care they want to provide. The care is directed to all maternity care providers in Kamloops, some from our outlying communities, and other partners and specific groups. Maternity care is quite complex and we need to be thoughtful as we move forward. This will be our first meeting and really is a brain storming of ideas working session. From there we will decide on next steps and timelines.

Health Care Partner Contact Information

Jacquelyne Foidart
Engagement Leader, Patient and Public Engagement | Thompson Cariboo Kootenays
250.879.1077
jfoidart@bcpsqc.ca