Dr. Brian Goldman who is a Staff Emergency Physician and the CBC Radio One Host of "White Coat, Black Art", speaks to delegates at the KGHConnect 2013 Knowledge Exchange: Transforming the Patient Experience hosted by Kingston General Hospital in Kingston, Ontario, Canada.
Dr. Brian Goldman who is a Staff Emergency Physician and the CBC Radio One Host of "White Coat, Black Art", speaks to delegates at the KGHConnect 2013 Knowledge Exchange: Transforming the Patient Experience hosted by Kingston General Hospital in Kingston,
Credit
Matthew Manor

After months of planning, Kingston General Hospital hosted its first major conference on Thursday, May 9 and Friday, May 10. The event brought together about 300 people from across the province and country, representing both patients and a broad range of health care organizations.

Among the attendees were delegates from regional and academic hospitals, Community Care Access Centres, Family Health Teams, Cancer Care Ontario, Accreditation Canada and the Canadian Patient Safety Institute, to name a few.

KGH organized the event as a forum for sharing information on how health care providers have been embedding the patient voice into planning and decision-making activities to improve organizational culture and create a truly patient- and family-centred care environment.

Along with our own CEO Leslee Thompson, the conference featured several highly-regarded international speakers, including Dr. William Schwab from the University of Wisconsin, who spoke about how Patient- and Family-Centred care improves quality, increases safety and enhances satisfaction for both those who receive care and those who provide it. Delegates also heard from Dave deBronkart, or 'E-Patient Dave', on the importance of inviting and accepting patientís help with their own care, and from the CBC's 'White Coat, Black Art' Dr. Brian Goldman on how patient engagement is now driving change and improvements in the health care system.

Every delegate was also enlisted to be part of the 'Knowledge Exchange' portion of the event which featured special sessions on the topics of Interprofessional Education, Collaborative Practice and Partnering with Patients. Focusing on those three themes, delegates added their own thoughts and experiences into the mix by sharing accounts of successes, challenges, and needs for transforming the patient experience.

'ìThere was a lot of energizing discussion and discovery taking place in these sessions and we are looking forward to sharing it soon with a wider audience," says Eleanor Rivoire, Vice President of Clinical Administration, Professional Practice and Chief Nursing Executive.

To that end, KGH has updated the conference website (www.kghconnect.ca/conference) and has shared videos of the presentations from each piece of the conference to enable the knowledge exchange to continue.

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