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Members, Quality Operations Council – Island Health

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Open to Vancouver Island Region, Patient partners in the Island Health region

Last updated

The Quality Operations Council brings together the co-chairs of Island Health’s quality councils to discuss and make decisions about the quality of care provided. If you are a thoughtful communicator who is willing to use your lived-experience to contribute to a council focused on quality improvement – this may be the opportunity you’ve been waiting for!

Open to: Patient partners in the Island Health region

Lead Organization or Department

Quality, Safety and Improvement, Island Health

Aim

Patient partners will be invited to draw upon their experience(s) of care and community knowledge to contribute to decision-focused discussions at monthly meetings. This will assist the Quality Operations Council to better understand and consider the perspectives of patients, families, and communities, and to ensure that their priorities are reflected in the Council’s decisions.

Level of Engagement

This opportunity is at the level of involve on the spectrum of engagement (www.iap2.org). 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

  • Have experience of health services within Island Health (as a patient, family-member or informal caregiver) and live in:
  • Geography 1: Campbell River, Comox, Courtenay, Mt. Waddington, Strathcona
  • Geography 2: Port Alberni, West Coast, Nanaimo, Oceanside
  • Geography 3: Cowichan Valley, Saanich, Gulf Islands - see full map of geographies
  • Comfortable sharing lived-experiences in a group setting for the purposes of learning and quality improvement;
  • A skilled listener who is respectful of a broad range of views;
  • Availability to attend meetings via video conference or in person at an Island Health location
  • Previously attended a PVN orientation session and completed the Volunteer Agreement. If you have not attended an orientation session but you are interested in this opportunity, please contact Leah Smith directly to see if accommodations may be possible.
  • The placement process for this opportunity may include an informal interview between the patient partner and the health care partner.
Assets, but not required:
  • Previous experience as part of committee or quality improvement project
  • Links to other agencies, networks or communities to inform a broad perspective

Logistics

  • Vacancies: 3
  • Date and time: 2nd Wednesday of every month from 7:30 am – 9:20am.
  • Location: The co-chairs lead the meeting from the Royal Jubilee Hospital in Victoria and connect via videoconference to various Island Health sites. Patient partners outside of Greater Victoria attend the meeting via videoconference from one of the following Island Health sites: Royal Jubilee Hospital, Victoria General Hospital, Saanich Peninsula Hospital, Comorant Island Community Health Centre, Port Hardy Hospital, Cowichan District Hospital, Nanaimo Regional General Hospital, West Coast General Hospital, Campbell River Hospital, Comox Hospital
  • Commitment: In addition to attendance at the monthly meetings, patient partners will be provided with meeting materials within the meeting invitations in advance of each meeting. Review of materials will take between 1 to 2 hours.
  • Term: 1 year with the possibility of extension

Reimbursement

Pre-approved out-of-pocket expenses such as mileage, parking and public transit will be reimbursed.

Background

The Island Health Quality Operations Council provides leadership, oversight and evaluation of quality matters with a focus on:
  • commitment to high standards of care,
  • clear and transparent accountability for those standards, and
  • a dynamic of continuous quality improvement
There are 18 standard setting Program Quality Councils (e.g surgery, medicine, public health) and four Geographic Quality Councils  that implement those standards within Island Health. The Quality Operations Council brings together the co-chairs of each of the program and geography quality councils. This Council considers cross-program, regional policies and other standards, and addresses matters of organizational clinical quality. This includes understanding and learning from patient safety events and feedback from our patients and clients. The director and medical director from the Quality team co-chair the Council.  The Council currently has one patient partner from Greater Victoria. More information on Island Health’s Quality Structures is available on their website.

Health Care Partner Contact Information

Leah Smith
Engagement Leader, Patient and Public Engagement | Southern Vancouver Island
778.678.3977
lsmith@bcpsqc.ca

 

From Our Community

Layton Engwer

Patient Partner, Sooke

Layton Engwer

PVN helped empower me to make meaningful contributions to Primary Care (PC) locally and provincially.  It also facilitated creation of PC Patient Voices which is focused on PC and provides education support and building on shared experiences.