Activating the potential of consumers partnering with health services

Health Issues Centre plays an important role in providing resources, training and support to enable the development of consumers and healthcare organisations to work as effective partners. As the peak health consumer advocacy body in Victoria, activating the capabilities, skills and leadership potential of health consumer advisors and representatives is our priority.

In early 2022, we published the Consumer Model – Partnering in Healthcare Organisations. The Model steps out three stages of consumer development, from 'emerging', to 'evolving', to 'experienced' and describes the role consumers could play in improving the health system according to their developmental stage. You can watch a presentation providing an introductory overview of the Model at the bottom of this page and you can download the resource here.

Online workshops

With funding from Safer Care Victoria, we will be working closely with consumers and healthcare organisations to ensure this Model becomes more than a concept on a page. We are hosting three online workshops to take a deep dive into understanding what complementary support you may need to grow the capabilities, skills or leadership qualities outlined in the Model. Each workshop will focus on specific activity areas described in the Model and we’ll be exploring gaps in current practice compared with what is outlined in the Model.

The activity areas include:

• Information, communications and health literacy
• Policy
• Quality and safety
• Patient experience
• Research
• Community engagement
• Governance, leadership and culture

Who should attend?

• Consumer advisors or representatives at any stage of development from ‘emerging’, ‘evolving’, or ‘experienced’
• Professionals leading consumer engagement in health services or who are interested in partnering with consumers across any of the above activity areas as part of your role

Places will be capped at 20 participants per workshop.

Why attend?

The findings from these workshops will feed into a co-design process for developing complementary resources, training packages or support options in the first half of 2023. By joining in you will directly influence the creation of materials that can benefit you.

What to expect?

• This will be a verbal discussion-based online workshop with opportunities to type contributions in the chat
• An agenda including key questions will be sent to participants ahead of time
• Join the session having reviewed the Model and prepared to share your feedback and suggestions
• The session will be recorded for note-taking purposes only and will not be shared

Workshop dates

We recommend that you sign up for the workshop covering the activity area you are most interested in focusing on. You are able to sign up for more than one workshop, however due to limited capacity, please be mindful of leaving space for a broad spectrum of voices to take part and consider where you might be best placed to contribute.

Tuesday 18 October 2022, 2.00-4.00pm

• Information, communications and health literacy
• Patient experience

Tuesday 8 November 2022, 10.00am-12.00pm

• Quality and Safety
• Community engagement
• Policy

Thursday 8 December 2022, 2.00-4.00pm

• Research
• Governance, leadership and culture

If you have any questions or wish to let us know about any access needs prior to the workshop, please email us at info@hic.org.au.