Abstract
Background: Engaging with patients and caregivers is essential to improve the quality of health care and create a more integrated experience. There is growing evidence that partnership and collaboration with patients and caregivers is essential as health systems around the world undergo reforms. To support health systems in building skills to partner, it is important that educational resources are provided along with opportunities for learning and reflection. The creation of the Ontario Health Teams (OHTs) in Ontario, Canada provided an opportunity to co-design and develop educational resources on engagement and partnership. OHTs consist of local health and social care providers working together to deliver integrated care for people in their geographic region. Early in the evolution of the OHTs, a strategic priority was identified to collaborate and partner with patients and caregivers in their work. A learning need was identified to provide accessible education on partnership and engagement.
Approach: We co-designed a virtual learning series to build system capacity and competencies for meaningful patient and caregiver partner engagement. The target audience was patient and caregiver partners as well as health and social care providers, leaders and staff who work with patient partners. The Engagement Learning Series was co-designed over the course of a year by 43 people including: patient and caregiver partners (18), researchers, trainees, health system leaders and providers over a series of virtual meetings. A terms-of-reference was created, a list of competencies was developed, and a prioritized set of topics was curated. Module specific working groups were created to plan content for each session and session specific evaluations were developed to assess what aspects of the content resonated, what required improvement and how participants planned to use the learnings in practice. After the completion of the series, two focus groups were offered to collect additional feedback.
Results: The Engagement Learning Series consisted of monthly 90-minute live sessions (taped to support future team based and self-directed learning) https://www.instituteforbetterhealth.com/portfolio-items/patient-caregiver-and-community-engagement-learning-series/ over 7 months in 2022/2023. The topics were: 1) Communication, Compassion & Empathy; 2) Bearing Witness to Lived Experience; 3) Equity, Diversity & Inclusion; 4) Leaning into the Challenges; 5) Preparing for Engagement Activities; 6) Engagement Methods; and 7) Evaluating Engagement Activities. Each session consisted of 3 components: 1) a theory burst, 2) an interactive panel or fireside chat, and 3) breakout rooms to discuss application of the content. A PDF fillable workbook, meeting accessibility standards, was created for each session to support continued learning. Each session had between 150-350 participants. Evaluations indicated the relevance and diversity of topics, but participants wanted more time to practice the skills learned. Incentivizing participation by making the education mandatory for health system providers was strongly recommended. Opportunities to apply the learnings further through ongoing coaching was recommended.
Implications: By co-designing the Engagement Learning Series with all partners at the table, we were able to identify relevant topics, engaging modes of delivery and opportunities for ongoing reflection and learning. This Learning Series provides essential resources and tools to advance partnership within integrated systems of care.