Participant, Palliative Approach in Long Term Care (PALm) Steering Committee

Interior Health is incorporating a palliative approach across all our long term care homes and needs two patient voices representatives to participate on the steering committee leading this work, and provide perspective on the tools and resources that are being developed for sites to use directly with residents and families. Help ensure our resources are resident and family friendly, and will support individuals to live as long as they can as well as they can.

Open to: Patient partners from Interior Region

Lead Organization or Department

Interior Health Residential Services

Aim

PALm is about our care team working with residents and families to develop a shared understanding of the resident’s disease trajectory, as well as their wishes, beliefs and goals in order to better provide certain aspects of palliative care, like pain and symptom management, reducing medications, or addressing psychosocial needs, earlier. The purpose in engaging patient partners is to bring the patient perspective to the tools and resources that are created to support this foundational shift in care delivery. IH is seeking two patient partners to join the steering committee, and as they become familiar with the work underway, we ask that they select the working group(s) that they feel they would best contribute to and participate in.  

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 long term care either personally or as a family member/support person
• have the ability to extrapolate personal experience from the general Residential care/Palliative patient population
• comfortable communicating your experience and working in a committee setting
• familiar or willing to learn about the provincial strategies and shift away from residential and acute care
• have a broad perspective of the health care system
• future thinking - can consider the wider future strategic direction of the program, and what people will need 10 years from now

Logistics

Number of vacancies: 2 Location, Date, Time and Frequency:

• steering committee meets monthly by teleconference and webex on the fourth Thursday of the month from 1030 to 1200.
• there is an in person meeting planned September 26 and 27th in Kelowna with the steering committee and phase one sites.
• meeting frequency and times may change.
• you may also be invited to participate in sub working groups based on your availability and interest.

Commitment: over a year

Reimbursement

• no expenses should be incurred with teleconferences as a toll-free number is provided
• any travel expenses related with attending in-person meetings will be fully reimbursed by Interior Health as per policy
• hotels are usually booked directly so no reimbursement needed.
• other expenses can take 2-4 weeks for reimbursement.

Background

Most people that are admitted to residential care are in their last 18 months of life with many dying within 6 months of admission. The majority of residents have complex chronic conditions that are not curable. Applying aspects of palliative care more upstream provides a great opportunity to help residents live as long as they as long as they can as well as they can. With the provincial focus on supporting people to live longer in community, we anticipate that within the next 5 years, the majority of people coming to long term care will be for end of life care. The committee has a broad internal stakeholder group that includes allied health, physicians, nurses, care staff, first nations. See Terms of Reference and Project Charter. Team Palliative Approach in Residential Care Framework.

Health Care Partner Contact Information

Carol Stathers
Engagement Leader, Patient and Public Engagement | Okanagan, Interior Region
778.516.3308
cstathers@bcpsqc.ca