Enhancing Meaningful Integration of Patient Partners in Collaborative Healthcare Initiatives: A Qualitative project at CISSS de l’Outaouais
Patient partners—patients, caregivers, or family members—can improve healthcare by sharing their experiences. A study in the Outaouais healthcare system, explored how patient partners collaborate with professionals, identifying barriers like unclear roles and poor communication. Through interviews, participants suggested improvements such as better onboarding, shared leadership, and respectful relationships. The co-constructed final recommendations were reviewed to ensure they met real needs. The study shows that meaningful inclusion of patient partners strengthens healthcare teamwork and offers guidance for other organizations.
Background
The integration of patient partners (PPs)—individuals with lived experience as patients, caregivers, or family members—has become a cornerstone of patient-centered healthcare. Their insights complement clinical expertise and help identify care gaps, improve outcomes, and enhance decision-making. Despite growing recognition, many healthcare organizations struggle to move beyond symbolic inclusion toward meaningful collaboration. Since the early 2000s, healthcare policy has shifted toward co-construction models, where PPs act as advisors, co-investigators, and co-designers. However, without structured support, engagement risks becoming tokenistic.
In Quebec, institutions like Santé Québec and the CISSS de l’Outaouais have formally embraced PP engagement, but operationalizing this commitment requires leadership, training, and systemic change. The CISSS de l’Outaouais, serving a diverse bilingual population near the Ontario border, offers a unique context for studying PP collaboration. The researcher explored the current engagement practices.
Leadership roles in healthcare play a pivotal role in shaping engagement culture, though healthcare professionals (HCPs) often feel underprepared due to limited training and guidance. This gap between policy and practice highlights the need for capacity-building and practical tools. Meaningful collaboration demands environments where PP contributions are valued and acted upon, with clear roles and shared decision-making.
Co-construction, emphasizing equity and mutual respect, remains underutilized. At the CISSS de l’Outaouais, while infrastructure exists, challenges like onboarding delays and unclear governance persist. As the organization undergoes structural reform, there is an urgent need to embed PP engagement into everyday practice through accessible, context-sensitive strategies.
Project team
- Dominique Pilon
TRP supervisors
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