Engaging a Patient and Family Voice at MAHC

The patient and family perspective has never been more important or influential in health care than it is today. It is only when we see health care through the eyes of patients and their families that we can truly improve their experience.


Building on MAHC’s vision to centre care around patients and families, we have formed a Patient and Family Advisory Committee at Muskoka Algonquin Healthcare. The committee includes 10 volunteer Patient/Family Advisors who come from different walks of life and different pockets of Muskoka. But the one thing they all have in common is their desire to share their own perspectives and that would benefit other patients’ and families’ experiences. A Patient/Family Advisor is someone who has had a recent experience either as a patient, or the family member of a patient being cared for at MAHC.


MAHC’s new Patient and Family Advisory Committee provides a venue to bring the patient and family perspective into consideration when we develop policies, programs and services. It provides us with another way to listen to our patients and improve their experience, and an opportunity for patients and families to provide targeted feedback to us when we are developing new programs or initiatives, making changes to our buildings and creating new processes.


I am very proud to introduce MAHC’s Patient and Family Advisory Committee, which met for the first time on January 18, 2017. The committee includes Debbie Provan, Donna Denny, Aaron Goodchild, Tammy Purvis-Ford, Robert Martin, Trudy Franklin, Linda Shier, Pat Looker, Bill Paterson and Brian Ferguson, and members of MAHC’s administration. The committee is co-chaired by Chief Quality & Nursing Executive Karen Fleming, and Donna Denny.



Front row (from left) are Debbie Provan, MAHC Chief Quality & Nursing Executive Karen Fleming, Donna Denny and Aaron Goodchild.  Back row (from left) are MAHC Executive Assistant Christine Loshaw, Tammy Purvis-Ford, Robert Martin, Trudy Franklin, HDMH Manager of Support Services Bev Leslie-Suddaby, Linda Shier, Pat Looker, Bill Paterson and MAHC Chief Executive Officer Natalie Bubela. Absent from photo is Brian Ferguson.