Envisioning mechanisms for success: Evaluation of EBCD at CHEO

To advance patient engagement (PE) and more comprehensively involve patients, families, and staff in quality improvement (QI) at the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario (CHEO), the Experience Based Co-Design (EBCD) approach was piloted. Set against the backdrop of envisioning factors that would facilitate success, an evaluation was designed to assess five domains: strengthening of mutual understanding, collaboration, and partnerships between patients/families and staff; a greater involvement of patients, families, and staff in QI; satisfaction with the process; the ability of EBCD to generate clear and useful data to ascertain the patient/family and staff experience; and the ability of EBCD to generate clear and useful data to improve patient/family and staff experience. The King’s Fund EBCD toolkit was followed to implement the approach. This involved observations and interviews to capture experiences; and feedback events to understand experiences and identify improvement areas. The resulting data was used to evaluate the process relative to the five domains of interest. The evaluation data supported the conclusion that the EBCD process usefully addressed each of the domains of interest, and facilitated PE in QI. In addition, the evaluation revealed important considerations to the success of such an initiative. Using EBCD allows for a more nuanced and comprehensive consultation than traditional methods employed. The research presented here informs the future spread and/or adaptation of EBCD by offering a case for using the approach, but also suggests modifications or considerations to integrate PE methods with existing structures for greater efficiency, success, and value