The Minister’s Patient and Family Advisory Council — Getting Started
Just over a week ago, on Friday November 24th and Saturday November 25th we had our inaugural meeting of the Minister’s Patient and Family Advisory Council for the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care. Over these 2 days, our Council members came together to get to know one another, meet with Dr. Eric Hoskins, Minister of Health and Long-Term Care, and his team, hear from the Deputy Minister, and other officials in the ministry. It was an incredibly busy two days, and the highlight for me was finally getting to meet our Council members to build our collective vision of what patient engagement might look like in Ontario at the health system level.
I am excited to introduce you to the first 9 minister appointed PFAC members.
Their bios can be found under the Council Members tab above. Minister Hoskins has been very involved in selecting his Council members, and has provided specific feedback on the remaining 6 Council members who I expect will be appointed by the end of February. The Minister’s PFAC members have various experiences with the health care system in Ontario. They have diverse backgrounds both personally and professionally, and come from different regions across the province — both rural and urban. I am looking forward to further expanding the depth and breadth of the Council as we move forward.
Understandably, much of our work at our first meeting involved getting to know one another and developing the relationships we need to work together as a team. After welcoming our members and introducing ourselves, our first task was to take on a brainstorming session along with our minister. We asked the question, “What If Health Care”, directing our members to describe the aspects of a ‘world class’ health care system in Ontario. What would it look like to them?
As you can imagine, there were many thoughts and ideas exchanged, and as we began to share, key areas of interest and focus began to emerge. This visioning exercise led into a focus on key and emerging themes in health care and the health care system later in the day. Our patient advisors reflected on their personal experiences to help define key areas of focus, which will help form the priorities of our PFAC and what we want to learn more about, inform, advise, partner, and collaborate on over the next 18 months.
A significant amount of our meeting was spent providing an overview of the health care system in Ontario. As you can imagine, with over 40% of the provincial budget directed toward health care in Ontario, the structure, programs, and policy drivers of the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care have many layers, and briefing our Council members on the many aspects of the ministry in a few hours was no small task. (I personally thought a skit or song and dance would have been more entertaining, but our team stuck with a well-designed and informative deck accompanied by some key background material).
It’s a lot to absorb and learn, and this is the amazing thing about patient advisors, their willingness and dedication to spend the time and act professionally in being dedicated and invested in this work.
We book ended our meeting with a fantastic workshop and discussion on the importance, value and impact of patient storytelling in health care partnership, design, delivery, and more. Lisa Hawthornthwaite and her colleagues, Lauren Lee and Mim Odowda took us through a learning process about the design and impact of a patient/family/caregiver story. As a group we also took away a better understanding of the importance of supporting patient storytellers and guiding/educating those who are hearing our stories so they understand the messaging and how they might apply what they learned from our stories. Most importantly, we discussed at length the emotional toll story telling can have on patients and families, and we reflected together on the importance of supporting each other through that process.
Patient, family and caregiver storytelling now has a regular place at the Executive Leadership Team table and bi-monthly with the LHIN (Local Health Integration Network) CEOs. I am so pleased to have initiated this with our patient engagement leaders at the ministry and see this as another important step toward a culture of patient centeredness.
Our plan going forward as a Council:
· welcome our 6 remaining members to be at a full complement;
· focus on a workplan and key priorities at our February 2018 meeting; and,
· begin the development of a ‘network’ for patient engagement at the health system/ministry level.
We are dedicated to this work, and we know there are others like us who also want to be involved. We have an ongoing invitation to join us at www.ontario.ca/patientengagement
We look forward to hearing from you and to sharing more about our work in the months to come.
