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Because your voice matters.

Patient Partner, Safer Suicide Care Initiative – Northern Health

Posted

Closed

Commitment: Short-term

Connection method: Virtual

Open to Northern Region, Patient partners across BC

Posted

• To engage persons with lived experience who have sought help for themselves or for a family member experiencing suicidal thoughts and/or suicide attempts to inform quality improvement to how care is delivered.

• To provide strategic advice on advancing a person-centred approach to suicide care across Northern Health.

• Patient partners will provide feedback that supports leaders in Northern Health to make decisions about improvements to care and services.

Potential Benefits of Participation:
• Opportunity to meet with other people with lived/living experience
• Potential to affect change in the health care system
• Honorarium for participation
• Transportation costs for local, in-person events (1-3 times per year in Prince George, BC e.g., local mileage; taxi) covered; a catered meal will be provided

Potential Risks and Ways We Will Mitigate Risk:

We will not be asking participants to re-live the trauma of their or their family member’s mental health crisis. Rather, we will be seeking patient partners’ input on the changes they believe can improve how the health care system responds to and cares for people in crisis.

There is the potential for re-traumatization/crisis as a result of sharing of one’s own and/or their loved one’s experience.

In order to lower this risk, we will:
o Provide crisis line information at the beginning and end of the event.

Level of Engagement

This opportunity is at the level of Consult on the IAP2 Spectrum of Public Participation.

Eligibility

  • Willing & comfortable to share health care experiences in a group setting
  • Previous committee/working group experience
  • Have access to technology and the internet to participate in the engagement opportunity
  • Comfortable using technology to attend online/virtual meetings
  • An interest in improving health care services
  • The time to participate in the engagement opportunity
  • Individuals who have received care for a suicidal crisis in the last two years. Individuals at a point of readiness and safety in their journey to speak about their experiences.

Patient Partners ARE NOT required to be PVN members to participate in this engagement opportunity.

Health Care Partner Contact Information

Dr. Roseann Larstone
Regional Quality Improvement Advisor, Quality and Innovation | Northern Health Authority
(250) 645-3144
roseann.larstone@northernhealth.ca

From Our Community

Derek Koch

Spiritual Health Practitioner and Patient- and Family-Centred Care Lead — Kelowna General Hospital

Derek Koch

The bottom line is because we’re caring for patients. People who know best are those who are receiving the care so it makes logical sense that we would consult with them about their experiences. By connecting with PVN we have been able to educate our teams about the value of patient partners and how important their perspective is in our services.