An Important Meeting

“Alberta Health Services (AHS) is looking for ways in which it can prevent further closures at the Pincher Creek Health Centre’s emergency department.”

Image from Google Maps

A public meeting will be held on Tuesday, August 15, 2023, from 7:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. at the Pincher Creek Community Hall. Everyone is welcome to attend. Click here for more information.

Help to Define Patient Safety

What is Patient Safety?

What does “patient safety” mean?

The University Health Network Open Lab team is working closely with the safety team at Healthcare Excellence Canada on their Defining Safety project. The goal of this project is to understand perspectives on the definition and future of patient safety from patients, caregivers, professionals, and leaders across Canada.

As a means of obtaining insights and ideas from Canadians, a ‘thought exchange’ about patient safety has been created. This exchange is a completely anonymous platform that provides space for participants to describe what they think the salient features are that should be included in a definition of patient safety.

If you live in Canada and want to join in the conversation on patient safety, click here.

Long-Term Care: Interest and Input

Are you interested in long-term care and its related issues? Would like to help create new standards for LTC homes? If you answered “Yes” to these questions, check out the following.

Call for Participants

Call for Research Participants

Researchers at BC Cancer and SFU are conducting a new study exploring Canadian cancer survivors’ preferences for using (not using) cannabis. If you are a cancer survivor interested in participating, please visit https://cc-arcc.ca/cannabis-survivorship-study-2019/ for more information.

Get Involved and Add Your Voice

The Neurosciences, Rehabilitation, and Vision Strategic Clinical Network (NRV SCN) is looking for patient and family representatives to respond to their patient engagement survey.

  • The scope of this new SCN includes:
      • neurological disorders (including Parkinson’s disease, Multiple Sclerosis (MS), epilepsy, dementia and Alzheimer’s disease), neuromuscular disorders (including spinal cord injury and Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS, or more commonly, Lou Gehrig’s disease)), and brain injuries;
      • all forms of physical rehabilitation (which may include working with a physiotherapist, occupational therapist, speech pathologist, respiratory therapist, recreation therapist, audiologist, chiropractor, or other rehabilitation specialist); and
      • all eye disorders (including cataract, glaucoma, macular degeneration, diabetic vision loss and other eye disorders).
  • The combined results received from this survey will be reviewed by the NRV SCN Leadership Team, presented at an upcoming Core Committee meeting and used to help inform the priorities of this new SCN.
  • If these clinical areas are applicable to you as a patient and family advisor, we invite you to complete this survey, or share the survey link and attached poster with others who may be interested in providing input.
  • The survey is open from December 21st, 2018 until January 21st, 2019 and should take from 10-15 minutes to complete. It can be found here.

Time for a Heart to Heart?


Do you reside in Calgary or area?
Do you or someone you care for have a cardiovascular/pulmonary condition?
Would you like to participate in a study focus group?

If you said “Yes” to the above, click here for more details.

What? Listen to Patients?

The importance of the patient is becoming more recognized in the healthcare sector. However, in many instances, including the pharmaceutical area, the patient is seen as simply something to talk to or to talk about.

According to a recent blog post by Mike Rea, this stance is limited and limiting in terms of who patients are and what they have to offer. As he asks in his post.

But, instead of talking to patients, what if we started listening? Not just to what they ‘need’, but what else they want? There are so many incredible groups out there now – potent patient groups (MMRF, MDA, Savvy Patients and more), who want to talk to us, who want to share. But, start to listen, and there will be a hundred hands that go up to stop you doing that.

Click here to read the full article.