PFCC - Engagement Opportunities
Family Advisory Safety Council
Overview
The Alberta Children’s Hospital’s (ACH) Family Advisory Safety Council is a forum where patient and family members provide insight and guidance on Safest Together* Initiatives and other hospital safety projects.
The Council will advise on a variety of topics including:
- hospital safety culture
- safety issues (themes/patterns not specific events)
- patient/family hospital safety related resources
- best practices for family participation in safety
- other safety related topics
Qualifications
Council members are parents/caregivers of ACH patients, youth ages 13 years and up with ACH patient experience and sibling of ACH patients who have emergency department, inpatient, or medical day treatment experience at Alberta Children’s Hospital within the last three years.
Additional qualifications:
- Ability to share insights and information about healthcare experiences in ways that others can learn from them
- Respectful of others’ experiences and perspectives
Comfort in sharing personal opinions and experiences - Capacity to meet time commitments
- Interest in expanding safety knowledge and skills
- Ability to maintain confidentiality
Meetings
Meetings will be on the first Thursday of the month, September to June, from 7:00 to 9:00 pm. All meetings will be online using Zoom technology.
Meeting format
A typical meeting will include a safety experience story, updates from previous meetings, and a consult. A consult involves a hospital service area, committee or project team bringing to the council a problem or work in development for council members to give input and feedback on based on personal lived experiences and perspectives. Different facilitation strategies are used to ensure all council members can contribute. At some meetings, a safety education component will be included.
Commitment
Members are asked to commit to attending monthly online meetings for a two-year term. This may include an additional one to two hours per month of pre-reading or follow-up. Members will also have the option to participate in additional activities such as sharing a story at a hospital meeting or participating in a separate focus group or working group.
Apply to join this Council
If you don’t have an Advisor volunteer account yet, submit an application. I you are a current AHS Advisor, send an email expressing your interest to achpfcc@ahs.ca.
All applicants will be contacted to schedule a phone interview to review the opportunity, their interest and experience, and answer any questions. All applicants joining the council will be required to complete Alberta Health Service’s volunteer registration requirements.
Email achpfcc@ahs.ca if you have any questions.
*Safetest Together at the Alberta Children’s Hospital
Alberta Health Services (AHS) is committed to advancing safe and high-quality care for children, as well as providing a safe working environment for staff. In 2017, the Alberta Children’s Hospital (ACH) and the Stollery Children’s Hospital joined the Solutions for Patient Safety (SPS) Network, a network of children’s hospitals across North America that are working together to eliminate serious hospital acquired harm across all children’s hospitals. The SPS Network is built on the fundamental belief that by sharing successes and failures transparently and learning from one another, children’s hospitals can achieve their goals more effectively and quickly than working alone.
The goal of ACH and Stollery in joining the SPS Network is to transform the safety and quality of care delivered in our hospitals by eliminating preventable harm to patients. This includes:
- reducing seven-day readmissions
- reducing serious safety events
- reducing hospital-acquired conditions
- reducing staff days missed due to injury
Alberta Children’s Hospital and Stollery branded this work - "Safest Together", a name that was selected after engaging ACH and Stollery youth and family advisory councils. For more information about Safest Together, go here (Safest Together | Alberta Health Services).
The Family Advisory Safety Council will play an integral role in supporting the goals of Safest Together.