Elizabeth Shenkman, PhD 
Ryan Theis, PhD Why Engagement Matters
Involving patients and partners in quality improvement and implementation science studies brings invaluable perspectives and expertise to the table. By incorporating their lived experiences, you can identify topics, interventions, and health outcomes that truly matter to the people you serve, ensuring your efforts are both relevant and useful.
This page explains how to move beyond token gestures and build authentic partnerships at every level of your organization. Learn how to create a culture of engagement, from initial consultation to sustained collaboration, and discover how these relationships can drive lasting improvements in patient care.
Resources
This collection of resources is excerpted from the free CME course, Patient and Partner Engagement for Quality Improvement and Implementation Science. It provides the foundational knowledge and practical strategies needed to build authentic and effective partnerships with patients and other stakeholders. By integrating their valuable perspectives, you can enhance the quality, safety, and relevance of your healthcare initiatives.
Basic Principles of Engagement
In this brief video, Dr. Elizabeth Shenkman outlines the key principles for building authentic and effective relationships with patients and partners. She emphasizes respect, humility, action, transparency, and the importance of making engagement a system-wide commitment.
Transcript: Basic Principles of Engagement
First and foremost, remember that patients and partners that you are reaching out to are already educated. They have their own lived experience to contribute.
Be respectful of that. Remember, you are not the only expert. You are bringing important knowledge to the project, and so are the others, based on their lived experiences and expertise. Show humility.
Action is important. Organizational pledges are just that. Be authentic, take action, and be accountable for your actions and commitments. Work with your health care system to have clear expectations for engagement, and to ensure that these expectations are system wide.
An office of community engagement and a community advisory board are helpful, but not enough. Be transparent, and work to co-develop your project with patients and partners. And last but not least, do it right.
Engage patients and partners in continuous quality improvement so the learning can continue.
Engaging Patients and Partners in Quality Improvement
Watch this video to learn why involving patients and partners is essential for quality improvement. Dr. Elizabeth Shenkman explores the continuum of engagement—from minimal to sustained—and highlights the benefits of incorporating their experiences and expertise into your projects.
Transcript: Engaging Patients and Partners in Quality Improvement
Why engage patients and partners in quality improvement and implementation science studies?
Most importantly, they bring their own experiences and expertise to identify topics, interventions, and health outcomes that are meaningful to them. This, in turn, makes the study more relevant and useful.
Patient and partner involvement increases the likelihood that findings will be used in health and community settings. It also increases the likelihood that the interventions will remain in use long after the quality improvement project or implementation science study has ended.
Engagement with patients and partners occurs on a continuum, ranging from minimal, to moderate, to sustained engagement. All levels of engagement can contribute to and enhance your project.
At the minimal level, you can reach out to patients and other partners to identify quality of care and health-related concerns that are important to them, and ask them to suggest interventions and desired outcomes from those interventions.
Moderate levels of engagement move beyond asking for recommendations, and actively engage patients and partners as consultants to review and help shape the project plan, and also to review study results and recommend next steps based on those results.
Sustained engagement means involving patients and partners as full members of your project. They can be a quality improvement or QI committee member, a member of the project team, a team co-leader. And also, they can be a co-author on all reports and papers.
While all levels of engagement are important and add value, sustained engagement is the goal.