Patients' Association of Canada

On Saturday, April 13th, the Patients' Association and Oakley & Oakley hosted To Err is Human: What Every Patient Should Know About Medical Errors. The purpose of the conference was to shed light on the nature of medical error in Canada, and many participants left feeling like they had gained a lot of information. We were lucky to have the expertise and perspective of speakers from many backgrounds including malpractice law, medical science, and risk management. Many of the speakers were happy to share their presentations; please find them attached below.

Charlie Smith -- Working as a B.C. coroner for 10 years, from 1993 to 2003, Susan McIver became well-acquainted with death. Over the phone from her home in Summerland, McIver emphasizes to the Straight that coroners don’t find fault—they merely report the facts. But that doesn’t mean they aren’t troubled by some of their grisly discoveries. “I saw things happen that shouldn’t happen,” she concedes... Read the full article here.

Yesterday, the first ever meeting of Patient and Family Advisers (PFAs) was held at Holland Bloorview Kids Rehabilitation Hospital in Toronto. Patient and Family Advisers from Thunder Bay to Halifax were there to get to know each other and work on issues that they felt strongly about. Everyone there wanted to build a strong national network of advisers in order to bring a helpful patient and family voice to healthcare.

Andrew Weil -- "... How can we improve medical care so that it's worth extending it to more people? In other words, how can we create a health care system that helps people become and stay healthy? I have argued for years that we do not have a health care system in America. We have a disease-management system."

Read the full article here.

CTV -- "... In the medical world, a patient’s ability to understand medical language is called “health literacy” and most of us are pretty low in it. In fact, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that nearly nine out of 10 adults have difficulty handling medical information, advice and health product labels."

At the February 25th Patients' Association Open Meeting, renowned Art Therapist Linda Nicholas facilitated a workshop on telling the patient experience through graphic expression. For those unfamiliar with art as a therapeutic technique, the method is generally understood in two ways: to treat the art-making process as therapeutic in itself, or by using art to facilitate the transference process between the therapist and the client making art (more on this here).

The Family and Patient Advisory Council at Sudbury's Health Sciences North have suggested a novel idea toward improving the patient experience in their emergency room. They've likened the idea to having "Wal-Mart greeters" in their emergency room. A staff member from Health Sciences explains the idea for the new role:

“It would be someone who would talk to you and say 'Can I get you a glass of water?' or 'You're cold. Can I get you a blanket? or 'Your situation seems to have worsened. Let me get the nurse, and she'll come and check you.' ”

We were delighted to come across this Globe and Mail article At Toronto's Mount Sinai, parents get a crash course in caring for their preemie.