Patient Speaker/Conference Participant, The 9th Annual Western Emergency Department Operations Conference (WEDOC)

Emergency departments play an important part in delivering health services in a community. Input from patients and families helps improve care and provides health care leaders with opportunities to ask questions.  Do you have an interest in helping to improve emergency department care in BC? Consider speaking at our national conference in Victoria, BC, on April 19-20.

Open to: Patient partners in the greater Victoria area

Lead Organization or Department

Island Health, Patient Flow

Aim

The Annual Western Emergency Department Operations Conference (WEDOC) is one of the only national conferences that focuses on emergency department process improvements and efficiency in Canada. The conference is a joint effort between the four western provinces and the five major western universities. It includes an "interactive patient panel" where patients are able to tell their story and interact with an audience of over 200 clinicians, physicians and senior decision makers, leading to better understanding of how emergency room crowding impacts the patient experience. The conference also demonstrates how patient involvement in improvement work can enhance patient access, safety and experience.

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 working in large groups, public speaking
• Comfort telling your story, answering questions and providing opinions to a large audience

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 Ryan Sidorchuk directly.

Logistics

• Vacancies: 3
• Location: The Empress Hotel, Victoria, BC, April 19-20.
• The patient panel time will be April 20, at 10:15 am. Each patient representative will have 3-5 minutes to tell their story and talk with the audience until 10:45 am. Ideally, all patient speakers will have the opportunity to record their story prior to the event. Details of that recording process are still being worked out.

Reimbursement

Full access to the conference and travel and accommodation as required.

Background

WEDOC strives to ensure that improvement efforts are meaningful for patients by partnering with them and their families. It allows emergency physicians and nurses, paramedics, senior health region and government decisions makers to listen and consider how their work impacts the patients they serve. WEDOC is an annual conference, with conference stakeholders and local host regions seeking to maintain a dialogue with PVN members so that they can track progress on initiatives they may become directly involved in. Learn more about the conference.

Health Care Partner Contact Information

Ryan Sidorchuk
Engagement Leader, Patient and Public Engagement | Central & North Vancouver Island
250.951.4850
rsidorchuk@bcpsqc.ca