ATTN compensation survey due Jan 4 for British Columbia PVN members

[Carolyn Canfield]

Hi PAN friends,

I'm posting this notice for the interest of PAN members across the country. We've shown in this discussion forum that financial compensation is a hot topic, especially for the increasingly significant work we are asked to contribute. We want to do the work, but should it be "for free"?

The BC Ministry of Health is asking members of the Patient Voices Network for their views on compensation. Please read below. If you are a Patient Voices Network member, please use the link to participate. THANKS!

Best wishes to everyone for 2019!!! Take care, stay well, don't take on more than you can manage.

Cheers, Carolyn

================

Good afternoon!

I hope this email finds you well! As promised by Ryan’s last email, this is your reminder to please fill out the survey on patient partner compensation if you haven’t already! To those of you who have, a HUGE THANK YOU! We have already had over 300 responses! Please disregard the remainder of this email if you have already filled out the survey.

The BC Patient Safety & Quality Council has been asked by the Ministry of Health to engage with the members of the Patient Voices Network to understand their views on patient partner compensation. Therefore, I’d like to invite you to read the background information included as an attachment to this email, and then complete the survey linked here if you have not already done so. The survey will be closed at 3pm on January 4, 2018.

I’d also like to take this opportunity to let you know that my teammates and I will be conducting both in-person and web-based focus group consultations and telephone interviews in the New Year. We look forward to welcoming many of you to those sessions and will be sending out invites once logistics have been confirmed.

If you have any questions or concerns that we might be able to assist with, please don’t hesitate to contact Ryan or myself. There will be one more reminder next week to fill out the survey before it closes. Apologies for the multiple emails but as it is anonymous we need to send the reminders to everyone!

Wishing you all a wonderful rest of your week and a happy new year!

Best wishes,

Teresa

Teresa Bissenden

Director, Patient & Public Engagement
BC Patient Safety & Quality CouncilW 604.668.8253

I acknowledge that I live and work within the ancestral, traditional, and unceded territory of the Tsleil-Waututh, Squamish, and Musqueam Coast Salish Peoples.

Backgrounder

Following the establishment of the Patient Voices Network (PVN) in 2009, the Ministry of Health (MoH) consulted with stakeholders, including patient and health care partners, regarding compensation1 for time spent on patient partner engagements. Although there were some patient partners who felt compensation should be provided for their time to participate in engagements, the consensus amongst the MoH, health care partners and majority of patient partners consulted was that patient engagements are voluntary activities. At that time, it was agreed that patient partners involved in an engagement should only be reimbursed for out-of-pocket expenses and not provided compensation in recognition of their time. The MoH then established a policy that no compensation would be provided for patient engagements to recognize their time and would focus on reimbursing for expenses alone.

Since this time the scope and type of patient engagements have evolved. Patient partners are engaged on high-level committees, as keynote speakers, and attend full-day sessions, as a few examples. The conditions and requirements for patient partners on engagements have shifted since the policy was established. Patient partner compensation has also been increasingly discussed nationally and internationally with organizations and agencies making individual decisions about whether their organizations would compensate patient partners for their time.

While most areas of patient engagement have followed the existing approach of not providing compensation for patient partners’ time, some areas have a longstanding practice and culture of compensating that pre-dates the MoH’s direction, such as in mental health, research and Indigenous health. These long-standing approaches to patient partner compensation combined with new compensation practices is creating confusion and disparities among patient partner engagements.

AIM

The MoH asked the BC Patient Safety & Quality Council (the Council) to lead an engagement of PVN membership to gather the patient voice to inform the review of the current patient partner compensation policy. The end objective is for the MoH to revisit their existing policy and decide if and how the policy needs to be updated. The reflections and insight from PVN is one piece of information that will be considered in developing the future of patient partner compensation. This opportunity will be at the level of consult on the spectrum of engagement. The feedback gathered through this process will be incorporated into the final engagement report.

1 “C_ompensation” in this sense might be used interchangeably with the terms “honorarium” or “gift”. It is meant to convey an exchange of financial, often monetary appreciation for a ‘service’ rendered over and above the reimbursement of out of pocket expenses. ‘Service’, in this sense, is the sharing of input over a given amount of time for the purposes of quality improvement, informed by lived experience as a patient or family member interacting with the healthcare system._

[Alies Maybee]

Carolyn, do we have any results yet from this survey which closed Jan 4?

[Carolyn Canfield]

Hi Alies,

No result except a mail-out that says over 500 people responded and that a variety of followup contacts are planned: interviews, webinars, focus groups across the province, etc. I've signed up for the Jan 28 evening focus group for the Lower Mainland, and will report back on my impressions.

I'd love to hear from any PAN-PVN members who also plan to attend. Please let me know!!
Cheers, Carolyn