by Kellie O'Callaghan, Principal, O'Callaghan + Co
Patient Experience has changed with #COVID19. As I sit here in the Chemotherapy Unit today I cannot help but notice the change to our own "unusual' normal. The same skilled and compassionate clinical care and support team, the same routine sounds of beeps and alarms, but greatly reduced chatter. No visitors here today. Also missing from our close-knit little community of care are the volunteers. They will be away for a while. They bring a connection to community to our visits to the unit. They also bring the delightful interlude of intermittent conversation that is neither clinical or physically focused. It is the style of conversation we would have in any community setting. Those delightfully engaged and compassionate conversations that are filled with kindness and distraction. These wonderful volunteers also have the magnificent gift of timing and biscuits that seems to overcome even the most difficult days. There has been a great deal of discussion regarding the falling away of Patient Engagement, co-design and co-production during this Covid period. I cannot help but feel for an overburdened health system and its diligent workers who have commitments to care that are far greater and more pressured than ever before. I also feel something leaning ever more so gently upon them, the growing burden of individual and community expectation, which in itself adds so much more to the very genuine emotional load of our health teams. I have had a Patient & Community Engagement Practice for quite some time and I have been a person with a lived experience of a rare chronic disease and also of cancer for longer than that. What I do know is that the Patient voice remains strong and will persevere. As we adjust and adapt to our new COVID19 normal, our approach to engagement will change, but that is to be expected. I don't think however that this change will be informed by blame or pressure. It will be founded in a kind and compassionate approach to people. People working together in partnership in a system. A system that is big and often overwhelming, but robust enough for us to challenge it's approach and our own expectations to reach a better outcome for all. Patients will lead. Those of us who work in partnership with organisations and clinicians will continue to support the essential work that truly sees Patients as partners in the planning, service response and ongoing improvement and innovation in healthcare. #PatientExperience #COVID19Australia #COVID19 #PatientsAsPartners #Healthcare #PatientEngagement #CommunityEngagement #WickedProblems Health communications & engagement with communities are elements of a great deal of the work I am undertaking at present.
Not surprising given the challenges of communicating frequently changing covid-19 information & health service responses. The Federal Government will get underway with this #covid19 campaign in Sydney markets to encourage vaccination. What are your thoughts on the approach? Link to ad 🔗 https://lnkd.in/gAgm2YZ And you would have done it differently.....how?
A question I put in a discussion with health professionals this week. With conversations about health communication & more frequently Covid-19 vaccination this week, there is increasing divergence of opinion regarding the best way to approach this important work of engaging community & stakeholders in understanding the way forward. Disagreement over the approach needs to be explored, as does the opportunity to continue to move the discussions forward. Shape a potential solution, an offering of a way to overcome the challenge. It doesn’t need to be fully formed or perfect. Creating spaces to highlight challenges but also to safely explore pathways to solutions is essential to finding a way through......together. More discussions & planning today. Looking forward to seeing where the room takes us. #health #community #wellbeing #leadership #patientexperience #consumerleadership What a brilliant space to facilitate discussions to inform a wonderful organisations health promotion & engagement planning.
Start with great people in a great space 🤲🏼 #programplanning #healthpromotion #healthleadership #patientexperience #facilitation #engagement #leadership #health |