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Making Patient Engagement Meaningful and Measurable

(Join Health Quality Ontario CEO Dr. Joshua Tepper and patient advisors Emily Nicholas and Claude Lurette for a tweet chat to discuss this topic on Wednesday, September 27 at 7:00 p.m. (ET)).

Involving patients in the planning, delivery and assessment of health care is core to supporting high quality care. Involving patients helps us achieve patient-centredness which is one of the defining dimensions of a quality health system.

Last year, Health Quality Ontario released the province’s first Patient Engagement Framework to define a common approach for engagement across the province and guide people in planning for implementing and evaluating patient engagement activities across the health system from personal care to system-wide governance. Engaging patients at all levels is a relatively new process so such a framework is not intended to be set in stone and could evolve as more work is undertaken to understand the whole process.

But how does one make that engagement meaningful and how do you assess the impact of that engagement? How do we know engaging patients is making a difference?

Getting from Situational to System-wide Quality

Variations in care received by Ontario residents, based on where they live or certain demographic factors, can indicate a lack of quality in a health care system.

The recent report prepared for Health Quality Ontario titled Quality Matters: Realizing Excellent Care for All acknowledges the existence of unwarranted variations in care and the negative impact they can have on patients. This was also a key theme in last year’s Measuring Up report from Health Quality Ontario which noted that, while Ontario was generally doing a good job of providing care to all who needed it, “unacceptable variation” still existed by geography and population groups.

Change Day Ontario: The Difference is You

Dr. Joshua Tepper and Gail Paech

To improve any health care system change must occur.

Change can be incremental or dramatic, but without it we cannot improve the quality of the health care system in Ontario or the health of those who live here. Individuals and teams who work within the health care system must feel empowered to make changes that can make a difference. So today we are asking you: what would you change?

Let’s make our health system healthier

Join Our Patient, Family and Public Advisors Program

Patients, families and the public are central to improving health quality.


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