Working together with you to improve health care services.
Become a patient partner
Partner with health care staff to have your thoughts and ideas included in the planning, delivery and evaluation of our care and services. When you do this, you become a patient partner.
A patient partner is a volunteer who shares their thoughts and ideas about their care experience with health care staff. The goal is to make the health care experience better for others.
Patient partners are different from volunteers. Volunteers might spend their time visiting with patients and residents or helping people find their way around. Find out about opportunities to volunteer here.
Patient partners do all of the following:
- Share what is important to patients and essential care partners (family, friends, caregivers, etc,)
- See beyond their own personal experiences
- Show concern for more than one issue
- Respect others’ views
- Work as team members
You can participate as a patient partner in the way that works best for you. This might be for a few hours a week, or a few hours a month. It might also be on your own or as part of a group. The part you play and the time it will take will depend on what you are working on.
Here are some examples of work that patient partners do:
- Help create information for the public
- Participate in care improvement projects
- Participate in building or renovation projects
- Bring their voice to new staff orientation and education sessions
- Participate as members of patient and family advisory councils
Patient partners make a difference.
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How to get involved
We recruit patient partners in several ways. One way is through the Patient Voices Network. The Patient Voices Network is a community of patients, families and caregivers working together with health care partners to improve BC’s health care system. Another way is directly through us:
- Apply – Introduce yourself to us by emailing patient.engagement@fraserhealth.ca. Let us know if you have used our health care services or helped someone use our services. Tell us how much time you would like to share with us and the kinds of projects you are interested in.
- Screening – Before you become a patient partner, you will meet with a staff member from the Patient Engagement team to talk more about the patient partner role, your interests and opportunities for getting involved.
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Learn more
For more information, email patient.engagement@fraserhealth.ca.