Patient Partners in Continuing Professional Development: Experience Developing an End-of-Life Care Program for Family...

Area of Science:

• Medical Education
• Patient Engagement
• Continuing Professional Development

Background:

• Patient involvement in continuing professional development (CPD) is underdeveloped, particularly in educational planning.
• While patients sometimes deliver CPD, their role in its design is limited.
• Existing models often position patients as consultants rather than active partners in CPD development.

Purpose of the Study:

• To address the challenge of engaging patients as partners throughout the CPD design process.
• To apply principles of authentic patient engagement to CPD development for family physicians.
• To create a collaborative model between a CPD office and a patient partnership unit.

Main Methods:

• Applied principles of authentic patient engagement and lessons from undergraduate health professional education.
• Formed a partnership between the CPD Office and the Patient and Community Partnership for Education.
• Identified best practices through literature review, environmental scan, and interviews with experienced patient educators.

Main Results:

• Developed a CPD module on end-of-life care with patient partners.
• Patient partners introduced novel perspectives, leading some CPD providers to re-evaluate their practices.
• Successful integration required stakeholder buy-in and effective facilitation.

Conclusions:

• Integrating patient partners into CPD planning is crucial for quality improvement.
• Mechanisms for identifying, facilitating, and recognizing patient contributions are essential.
• CPD providers should view patient partnership as an opportunity for continuous enhancement.