St. Joseph’s Healthcare Hamilton recognizes the importance of meaningful partnerships to best support patients and their families. There’s growing evidence of the benefits of the support loved ones provide in a patient’s care, resulting in lower re-admission rates, improved quality of care and overall better patient outcomes.

One of the ways St. Joe’s is supporting these important partnerships and providing patient-centered care is by launching the Essential Care Partner program in January 2023 based on feedback from patients and families. This program was initiated by Healthcare Excellence Canada and is supported by the Ontario Caregiver Organization with guidance, resources, tools, learning opportunities. The program ensures patients are supported by those they identify as the most appropriate to provide them with the unique support they need.

An essential care partner could be a family member, friend, neighbour, colleague, community member or substitute decision maker. The essential care partner acts as a member of the care team and works with the patient and the care team to plan the patient’s care and to determine how they can best support the patient. The partner could provide emotional, social, psychological and physical support based on their capacity and comfort, and the patient’s needs and could range from supporting the patient with hygiene to asking questions on the patient’s behalf.

“Being an essential care partner allowed me to have more of a voice in my husband’s care,” said Janet John, former essential care partner. “I was able to help with feeding him, helping with his physiotherapy and occupational therapy and more. It made a big difference in making life feel more routine and normal.”

The Essential Care Partner program has benefits for many patient populations, with additional benefits to vulnerable patients, including those from equity-deserving groups. Essential care partners can help by advocating for the patient, providing information in the patient’s language of choice and assisting with any hearing, visual, speech, cognitive, intellectual or memory impairments that may exist.

While family support has always been important in providing patient care, the Essential Care Partner program further demonstrates St. Joe’s commitment to partnering with patients and families to improve the quality of care, as outlined in St. Joe’s Strategic Plan. A working group was formed in January 2022, with the support and collaboration of St. Joe’s patient and family advisors, to determine how the role of essential care partners could be put into action.

One of the first units to launch the Essential Care Partner program at St. Joe’s was General Internal Medicine on 4 Bishop Dowling, a clinical teaching unit focused on acute medical care and geriatric assessment. Since the program started, more than 50 essential care partners have participated on the unit.

“As a hospital, we recognize how important the inclusion of essential care partners is, as they provide numerous benefits to patients, families, care providers and to the system as a whole,” says 4 Bishop Dowling clinical manager, Alana Tymchuk.

“It is so fulfilling to hear all the positive feedback from patients, care partners and healthcare workers about the impact essential care partners have by providing their support, feedback and collaboration as a vital part of the care team.”

Alana and the 4 Bishop Dowling team were recently honoured with an Award of Excellence as recognition of their dedication to advancing the level of patient and family engagement as part of the Essential Care Partner program.

Following the initial success of the Essential Care Partner program, the program is now available on 16 units across the hospital, while gathering feedback from patients, partners and healthcare workers to continually strengthen the program.

For more information and details on how to get involved, visit stjoes.ca/ECP.