Health Advisors
Health Advisors are volunteers — patients, family members, or community members — who partner with the health system to improve care. Whether sharing personal experiences or offering broader perspectives, they bring valuable insights that enhance discussions with health care staff.
Need a health advisor for your program or project?
The sections below will provide you with the knowledge and tools required for a successful engagement experience.
Recruitment
Choose one of the following 4 options.
program | service clients | families
the region
Create a position description and email to Trish Braun to discuss advertising options.
network of advisors
a pool of provincial advisor
Screening & Interviews
Once you have some applicants, work with your team to determine the ideal advisor for your initiative.
In some situations, it can be helpful to have conversations or informal interviews with interested health advisors before confirming their participation to help ensure a good fit for all involved.
Informal Interview Questions Sample (French version available upon request)
Onboarding
Once you have health advisors confirmed, assign a staff person to be the primary contact for the advisor.
Connect with the advisors and distribute the following items:
Select the numbered list below and copy/paste in an email message
- Provincial Advisor Orientation – this link will provide access to the Public, Patient & Family Advisors in Healthcare course
- Accessing the system for the first time: Click at the top and SIGN UP; enter your FULL NAME, your EMAIL ADDRESS and a PASSWORD of your choice.
- Accessing the system with your previous login: enter your CREDENTIALS. If you forgot your PASSWORD, use “I forgot my password” to reset.
- On the home page, modules are listed on the right hand side. Click on the WELCOME SECTION to get started. Information on how to navigate this course will be provided. Continue until all 3 modules are complete.
- Confidentiality form with Scenarios (available in French upon request)
- Health Advisor Handbook (English) (French)
- PHIA Training for Volunteers
To complete online PHIA training using the casual employee account:
- Go to the LMS log in page. (https://sharedhealthmb.learnflex.net)
Note: Pop-up blockers must be turned off - Log in with these credentials:
Username: casual.employee
Password: password123 - The Learning History page will come into view. If this does not happen, select the Learning History tab.
- Click the Launch button next to PHIA for Health Care – Manual Pledge.
- Complete the course.
Support
Provide support to health advisors by being available before, during and following engagement efforts.
Activity
Preparation for meetings:
- Consider the convenience and schedules of patients and families as well as staff in planning the times and locations for meetings.
- Send agenda and minutes ahead of time to all committee members, remembering to allow time for material to reach patients and families (they may not have fax machines, email, etc.).
- Provide a list of committee members with a brief description of each person.
- Offer a mentor, an experienced advisor or another committee member, to support a new advisor.
- Consider having a trusted person come to the first meeting with a new member and debrief afterwards.
- Remember that this type of collaboration is new for many people so preparation and orientation is important for staff, as well as patients and family members.
- Plan for compensation of time, expertise, and expenses for patients and families. For some this may not be necessary. See Compensation Guidelines.
- Designate one staff member to be responsible for reimbursement and other practical or logistical issues for advisors.
Activity
Go as Planned
Closing the Loop
- Inform Health Advisors how their feedback was used and what changes resulted
- Send link for the Exit Survey to your advisor upon completion of engagement activity
- Fill in the Engagement Activity Log
For more information contact Trish Braun