Patient Representative

• Serve as a central point of contact for patients and families seeking to raise concerns, express feedback, or navigate hospital services.
• Document patient and family compliments and concerns that come in by phone, web form, email, and in-person
• Prioritize (triage) and facilitate communication between patients/families and care teams to address concerns and clarify information as needed.
• Create and distribute patient/family response letters and acknowledgement of concerns/complements
• Mediate and resolve conflicts, ensuring issues are handled with empathy and professionalism.
• Coordinate patient/family meetings (e.g. critical incidents, disclosures)
• Collaborate with departments (e.g., risk, patient safety, quality improvement, clinical teams) to investigate complaints and identify quality improvement opportunities.
• Coordinate and distribute reports for quality improvement (descriptive statistics, trends, etc.)
• Support policy and procedure development related to patient feedback and service recovery
• Patient Advocacy
• Advise, coach, and support program and clinical staff (e.g. Occupational Health & Safety, clinical and support staff, finance, facility/equipment) with best practices and escalation processes to address patient care issues
• Educate staff on patient rights, communication strategies, and service recovery best practices.
• Conduct preparatory meetings for internal teams (e.g. physicians and administrative leaders)
• Assist patients/families understand/navigate the health system and care process
• Actively listen to patient/family concerns and link to internal and external resources
• Champion a culture of kindness, inclusion, and accountability
• Attend quarterly Quality Improvement Plann meetings chaired by the Quality & Patient Safety team
• Set up and run biweekly meetings with high-needs programs (e.g. Emergency Department)
• Flag potential claims risks to the Manager, Risk & Controls, as patient relations cases develop into medical legal cases
• Attend multi-departmental system reviews to analyze root causes of complex cases and potential quality improvement strategies
• Appropriately provide an overview of legislative and regulatory rights to patients/families as requested
• Inform patients and families that lawyers and paralegals are not permitted to attend patient relations meetings
• Recognize and maintain appropriate communication between all parties, recognizing that all information is subject to the Freedom of Information Act, and will be included in
• Remind patients/families that recordings are not permitted in family meetings without permission of all individuals involved in the meeting
• Once recognizing a trend in patient relations cases (e.g. insights from disclosure meetings), escalate trends to the leadership for quality improvement purposes
• Have an excellent understanding and operationalizing of the Lock Box procedure
• Support patients/families with access to their health records using appropriate consent/permission forms
• De-escalate patients/families during and after meetings using various techniques (e.g. Gentle Persuasion Approaches, or others as appropriate)
• Prepare bi-annual Patient Relations Reports for Board Quality Assurance Committee

• Degree in Social Work or Nursing discipline required
• Ontario Patient Relations Associations (OPRA) membership in good standing preferred
• Minimum two years’ experience in Social Work or Nursing required, preferably in a hospital setting.
• Demonstrated skills in MS Office applications including Word, Outlook, Excel. Meditech experience preferred.
• Demonstrated understanding and application of Health Quality Ontario’s (HQO) Quality Improvement Plan (QIP)
• Strong active listening, empathy, negotiation, conflict management, tact and diplomacy, mediation, problem solving skills
• Strong interpersonal, conflict resolution, and communication skills with a high level of emotional intelligence
• Demonstrated knowledge of relevant legislation and legal frameworks including Patients First Act, Public Hospitals Act, Excellent Care For All Act, Health Quality Ontario’s Quality Improvement Plan, Freedom of Information and Personal Privacy Act, Personal Health Information Protection Act, Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act, Quality of Care Information Protection Act, Ontario Human Rights Code, Ontario’s Patient Ombudsman, Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act, Occupational Health & Safety Act, Workplace Hazardous Materials Information System, Corporate operational policies and procedures, College of Nurses of Ontario, College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario, Ministry of Health.
• Excellent attendance and discipline free record required
• An understanding of equity, diversity, and inclusion principles as they relate to health practices is an asset. Humber River Health values lived and learned experiences in addressing systemic barriers and advancing inclusive practices.

Humber River Health