Ways to Engage

There are so many ways in which you can get involved in health care decisions. Perhaps, the most obvious is in your own (or your loved ones) care through conversations with your health care providers. However, you can also get involved in health care decision-making at the national, provincial, and local government levels. Opportunities include: providing input to various decision-makers such as publicly funded bodies (e.g., drug plans) and regulatory authorities (e.g., Health Canada consults on various issues). To find out more about drug recommendations and how you may be involved check out our video (external link) .

Other ways in which you can become engaged to improve health care include:

• Participating in research
• Participating in patients’ and consumers’ organizations, and in scientific and academic societies (e.g., Strategy for Patient-Oriented Research (external link) )
• Helping the pharmaceutical industry identify needs and perspectives of patients
• Providing input through various consultation processes (e.g., surveys, focus groups, individual interviews, online consultation, etc.) or through more participatory methods (e.g., serving on advisory committees at a national level (e.g., CADTH’s pan-Canadian Oncology Drug Review (external link) ) or provincial level (e.g., The Committee to Evaluate Drugs (external link) ) or councils at the hospital level (e.g., Patient and Family Advisory Council (external link) )].
• Participating in a health technology assessment body (e.g., Canadian Agency for Drugs and Technologies in Health (external link) )

The way in which you decide to become involved will affect the level of your influence.⁴