Opportunities - Patient Advisory Committee for Cardiovascular Health Research
Patient Advisory Committee for Cardiovascular Health Research
University of Calgary
Background
Heart disease, such as a heart attack, is one of the most common health conditions affecting Canadians and can impact the lives of individuals, families and caregivers. Our group is striving to better understand what matters most to people affected by heart conditions to inform meaningful research. By learning from your experiences, we hope to identify priorities, challenges, and opportunities to improve cardiovascular health care and promote health knowledge in a way that matters most to those affected.
Do you have lived experience with heart disease, or are living with cardiovascular risk factors, or have been involved in the care of someone who does? We are looking for patients, family members and caregivers to create a Patient Advisory Committee that will help guide our cardiovascular health research, education, and health promotion initiatives.
Committee members will work with the research team to share their insights and provide feedback to help shape future research and initiatives, ensuring they are focused on the needs and priorities of patients, families and caregivers. Your lived experience expertise and voice can help improve heart health care and outcomes for all Canadians.
Roles and Responsibilities
We are establishing a Patient Advisory Committee of 5-7 Alberta based patient partners, family members, or caregivers to those with lived experience of cardiovascular disease. We hope to have people from diverse backgrounds, ages, genders, cultures and from across rural and urban Alberta.
The committee will meet monthly over approximately a 12-month period and work alongside researchers and healthcare professionals to co-develop a cardiovascular health priority-setting exercise. The goal of this exercise is to identify the questions, challenges, experiences, topics, and needs/preferences/priorities that matter most to people affected by cardiovascular disease. This will help guide future research and health initiatives and ensure it is relevant and matters to those it impacts.
Members will:
-learn about Patient-Oriented Research
-collaborate on the design of online priority-setting methods
-co-develop recruitment materials for the priority-setting exercise
-advise on how to engage a representative group of people in Alberta that is equitable, diverse and inclusive so priorities of all perspectives are included
-support an online priority setting exercise
-help interpret and summarize findings from the priority-setting exercise
-help inform dissemination strategies of the results
Time Commitment
Twelve month membership beginning September 2026. Virtual patient advisory committee meetings will be once per month for 60-90 minutes during day time hours. There may be opportunities for committee members to collaborate on additional work in between meetings.
Members may be invited to attend optional in-person events.
Compensation/Reimbursement
This is currently anticipated to be an online opportunity.
Compensation will be offered as per AbSPORU guidelines (here) for meeting attendance and work in between meetings (1-2 hours)
Training webinars will be offered (1-3 hours) on Patient-Oriented Research during meetings.
Parking will be reimbursed for any in-person events.
For more information or to apply
Name Heidi Virtanen
Email heidi.virtanen@ahs.ca
Phone 587-943-2751
