Barbara Cawley, VP of Client Services..

VHA Home HealthCare (VHA) is committed to engaging client and family partners in all we do. VHA’s Client and Family Voice program was initially launched in 2014 within our Client Services Department under the leadership of Barbara Cawley, VHA’s Vice President, Client Services. This strategic approach helped foster early success by creating a link between the new program and our care teams – who had the relationships and opportunity to identify clients and family caregivers who could contribute to VHA’s desire to engage them as a ‘partner’ when developing services or making quality improvements.

Since then, our supervisors, frontline staff and providers have played a big part in embedding co-design with clients and family caregivers as a part of how VHA provides service and addresses quality improvements. We are pleased to share that the Client and Family Voice Program will be moving to the Quality portfolio as the next step in its journey under the leadership of Interim VP of Quality, Best Practice & Education (QBPE) Kathy Sidhu.

“I am delighted to see the evolution of our Client and Family Voice Program at VHA,” states Barbara Cawley. “The transition to our Quality department demonstrates the importance and value VHA places on engaging and partnering with clients and their caregivers. The quality of our services and programs depends on the knowledge that the care we provide is what matters most to our clients and that their experience is always a positive one.”

Under Kathy Sidhu’s leadership, we plan to continue to expand our group of client partners to fully reflect the breadth of services we offer. We will also focus on mapping out VHA’s vision and framework for this program.

Kathy Sidhu, Interim VP of Quality, Best Practice & Education (QBPE)

“I’m both thrilled and honoured to have the opportunity to provide ongoing leadership and growth of the partnership we have established with VHA’s clients and family caregivers through this next chapter,” said Kathy. “I’m excited to work alongside more of our dedicated, passionate client and family partners and VHA’s Client Services team to continue to drive Client and Family Voice forward.”

By making this change at VHA, we are integrating the voices of our clients and family caregivers into our more fulsome client experience work and embedding the “nothing about me, without me” approach into initiatives across the organization.

Additionally, this transition more formally connects Client Voice with the Quadruple Aim quality framework and drives our continued pursuit of true co-design with clients and families as described in Accreditation Canada’s client-centered-care standards.

Stacey Ryan, in a new role as VHA’s Client and Family Voice Specialist, will be another key driver to this work. She will continue to collaborate with Quality team members and effectively link the voices of our clients and caregivers to our quality, client safety & client experience work.

“I’m excited for Stacey to continue to expand her role,” said Kathy. “She is a critical contributor in leading our staff, providers and partners through this transition – her experience, steadfast commitment to the program and positive energy will help us include the voices of our clients and families into even more of our work going ahead.”