This episode is part two of a three part series exploring how the Rural Evidence Review (RER) project set out to gather information on rural patient health priorities using a survey which received over 1800 responses. Part one focuses on the work and objectives of the RER, part two focuses on the outreach strategy for the survey, and part three will focus on the findings from the survey and what steps might come next. 

Thanks for listening!

This is part one of a three-part series exploring the RER's very successful rural patient health priority survey, which received over 1,800 responses from people all over BC. Stay tuned for our next episodes where we'll discuss how the survey reached so many people and what we learned from the responses. 

On today's episode we sit down with Ed Staples and Nienke Klaver of the BC Rural Health Network. The BC Rural Health Network is an organization composed of health advocacy groups from rural and remote communities across British Columbia who work to provide a coordinated voice on critical issues for rural health from the patient perspective. Join us to hear how the Network has grown rapidly since its inception only a couple of years ago, and how they have been engaging in health conversations all over the province.

In this episode we speak with April Hards, the author of the Hards Method, a tool that expecting parents can use to help plan for their own mental wellness following childbirth. As a resident of rural BC living in the town of Golden, April took it upon herself to make sure that she would have the kind of integrated support she needed to protect her postpartum mental health. Now April is working alongside Dr. Kornelsen to have the tool she developed made available other expecting parents in rural BC.

Healthcare is supposed to serve the needs of the patient - but how do the people who design our healthcare system know what those needs are? What happens when a rural patient wants to share an idea for making healthcare better? How are rural patient voices heard in BC and why does it matter?

Join us as we begin to explore these questions and more in our new podcast mini-series all about rural patients engaging in healthcare improvement in BC.

In our first episode, we’re joined by Dr. Jude Kornelsen and Christine Carthew from the Centre for Rural Health Research to discuss why rural patient voices are so important for healthcare improvement, and how the Centre works to amplify them.

Stay tuned for episode two next week!

This week's episode wraps up our mini-series on stories of resilience and ingenuity in rural communities in the COVID-19 era with a discussion with Jane MacKenzie of the Salt Spring Arts Council (SSAC). The SSAC has been collecting any and all accounts of life during the pandemic from residents of Salt Spring in the form of poems, photographs, stories, and more. Join us as we discuss life on the largest of BC's Gulf Islands.