Dive into Kim Eggers, PQI Patient Partner Advisor's experience at her first Quality Forum in April of 2024. Quality Forum is an annual conference hosted by Health Quality BC, that brings together British Columbia’s health care community to share and discuss how to improve quality across the continuum of care. This three-day event is a great opportunity to learn new skills and strategies, discuss opportunities and challenges, and network with others interested in improving health care.
Recently, I had the privilege of attending HQBC’s Quality Forum in Vancouver with the NH PQI Team. I had never attended before and wasn’t sure it would necessarily be a good fit for me as a patient partner. Turned out—I was completely wrong in my thinking! I’m glad that various members of NH PQI gently encouraged me to join them in attending this key QI conference.
One of the PQI Coaches asked me afterwards: what resonated the most with me while attending the conference? Truth: everything! It was so gratifying to learn of the many QI projects that have been implemented in BC by so many hardworking health care professionals, systems-type professionals, and patient partners. As well, it was such a pleasure to feel the wave of positivity, hope, and joy rush over me, over and over. I was, as many others were, exhausted by the end of it. But it was a good exhaustion.
There was such a sense of accomplishment by everyone presenting their QI projects, that it renewed my belief in the importance of QI in BC, and going forward, in spite of the hard work required—health care can not help but get better, due to this type of outlook.
I was also so happy to finally meet in-person, other Patient Voices Network (PVN) patient partners, while attending the conference. I’ve had the privilege of working with a few of them previously. I worked with one while we were both part of the BC Emergency Medicine Network team (Louise) and had recently started working alongside another at BCIT in their SoHS’ programs (Pam). However, I had only met them virtually previously. Both of them are dedicated, hardworking, experienced patient partners. They have contributed in a smart, intuitive manner to many health care initiatives and projects, volunteering many hours and a great deal of their energy in order to continue to improve health care for everybody!
If you ever get the chance to attend this conference—just do it!
Written by Kim Eggers, PQI Patient Partner Advisor