How to Use CHI’s Patient Engagement Methods Tool

2020 Update: The tool has been converted to a user-friendly PDF guide, available from https://www.chimb.ca/s/200520-PE-methods-of-Engagement-web.pdf

One of our goals at the George & Fay Yee Centre for Healthcare Innovation (CHI) is to act as a catalyst for innovation in health research, systems, and services. This includes responding to the needs of Manitoba health researchers, as well as patients, caregivers, families, and communities who engage in health research projects and programs. We had heard from research teams (including patient and public partners) that they needed resources and methods to use for effective and meaningful patient and public engagement in health research.

In response, our Patient and Public Engagement Lead, Carolyn Shimmin (on Twitter @CarolynShimmin), led a project mapping the research process, from conceptualization to implementation, and determining which engagement activities fit best with each stage of research. Engagement activities — or participatory methods — enable people (in this case, patient and public partners) to play active and influential roles in decision-making (in this case, about the research process).

Mapping Engagement to the Research Process

Carolyn worked with CHI’s Knowledge Translation team, patient and public representatives, and a Process Engineer to conduct this project of ‘process mapping’ in engagement. The team conducted a literature review, discussed participatory methods and engagement activities with experts, patient and public partners, and members of the community, and sought feedback on countless prototypes of the map.

In 2015, the map was transformed into an interactive online engagement methods tool to help research teams plan appropriate activities for their patient and public engagement strategy. In 2020, the map was reformatted into a downloadable PDF guide, with user-friendly hyperlinks (go to our resources page to download). The tool is and always will be completely free and publicly available to health researchers, patients, caregivers, families, communities, health consumer organizations, policy-makers, and anyone interested in learning more about participatory approaches. If you’re just getting started in patient engagement, check out Carolyn’s PE 101: Introduction to Patient Engagement Series.

For each phase of the research, there are three levels of engagement: (1) consultation, (2) collaboration, and (3) patient/public-directed. Check out Carolyn’s blog on levels of engagement for more info.

Each participatory approach (such as discussion groups, World Café, or digital storytelling) includes an evidence-based description of the approach, its methods, and when it is appropriate, as well as links to additional resources.

How to Use the Engagement Methods Tool

Before you start:

Although we want research teams to be able to use the tool to help guide their decisions about how to engage, ultimately this decision should be made alongside patient and public partners by discussing with them how they prefer to be engaged and what they believe is most appropriate and sensitive for the population and topic being researched. If you haven’t already, check out Carolyn’s blog on internal & external assessment to make sure both you and your team, and potential patient and public partners, are ready to work together on your project.

1) Open the Tool

Visit our Resources page and scroll down to “Methods of patient and public engagement: a guide” to view and/or download the PDF.

2) Choose the Stage/Phase of Research You are Interested In

From the list on page ii, determine the stage of research you are interested in engaging with patient and public partners about:

3) Choose the Level of Engagement

At the bottom of the page, you’ll find a heat map indicating the level of engagement — where orange indicates ‘low’ engagement (the consult level), yellow indicates ‘medium’ engagement (collaborate level), and green indicates ‘high’ engagement (patient/public-directed level).

Some engagement activities will be found under multiple stages and levels, because they were deemed useful in various contexts. We get into these different engagement activities in more detail in other posts — including the World Cafe and focus & discussion groups.

For example, if we decided with our patient and public partners that we would work collaboratively in designing the research project, we would look at the numbers listed next to the ‘research design’ stage that are yellow:

4) Explore the Potential Engagement Activities/Participatory Approaches

For each research stage and level of engagement, there are 3 or more options for engagement activities. The list of activities on the right-hand side of page ii has activities color-coded by level — if a circle is half yellow and half orange, that means it can be used at both the collaborate and consult levels of engagement.

To view an activity in more detail, click its title in the list of activities and you will be brought directly to the relevant page of the PDF. There you will find more information about what it is, how it should be used (e.g. types of decisions, number of patient and public partners), and to find references and additional information (hyperlinked at the bottom of each page).

For example, if we wanted to look at ‘participatory design’, we would click on it to visit its page, which looks like this:

5) Compare Engagement Activities, Levels, and Stages

Consider the time and resources required for each activity, and compare this to what your team (and patient partners) have available. Make a list of approaches you’re considering and explore these in more detail.

6) Read Up on Engagement

This is obviously not an exhaustive list of potential approaches, but is intended to give you some insight and ideas for engaging meaningfully with patient and public partners, for whichever research stage(s) and level of engagement your team ends up choosing.

Don’t be afraid to think outside of the box, especially if your patient and public partners suggest something not listed. And, as always, let us know if you have any approaches that you’ve used in patient engagement that we should consider adding to the list!

More on Patient Engagement Methods

For more on Patient Engagement from KnowledgeNudge, including more in-depth descriptions of each of these methods, follow us on Twitter at @KnowledgeNudge or visit https://medium.com/knowledgenudge/patientengagement/home.