Stakeholder Engagement
Stakeholder engagement is a process whereby an individual, group, or organization involves people who may be affected by, or may be able to influence, decisions or actions under consideration of being implemented.
What is stakeholder?
Stakeholders can include patients, residents, family, researchers, health care providers, decision makers or anyone else who takes a vested interest in the outcomes of the research being undertaken.
Stakeholders’ lived experiences and voices of interest in the care of the patient help researchers ensure that their research is patient-centered and relevant to those who may be impacted by the research interventions.
What is stakeholder engagement?
Stakeholder engagement is a process whereby an organization, team or individual involves people who may be affected by, or may be able to influence, decisions or actions under consideration or being implemented.
It is important to establish and foster a culture of mutual respect between stakeholders and the research team to promote effective stakeholder engagement.
This may include hosting team meetings, co-developing individual and project goals, actively involving all team members, and regularly checking-in with stakeholders.
How will we implement stakeholder engagement?
We will meaningfully include long-term care residents, caregivers, and staff in all aspects of our research endeavours, including discussion of matters pertaining to the intervention and key decision-making.
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Our plan to for stakeholder engagement includes the following activities:
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Hosting standing committee meetings to facilitate safe spaces for meaningful discussion regarding the interventions and evaluation of team progress.
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Holding researchers accountable in incorporating stakeholders’ contributions from standing committee meetings.
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These activities will create a feedback loop between researchers and stakeholders which will help us adjust our intervention in response to real-time ideas emerging from stakeholders. This rapid response will further minimize a hierarchical structure and enhance the psychologically safe environment for stakeholders. Since the project is being conducted in different provinces, we will involve stakeholders from long-term care homes from each province to aid us in understanding barriers and facilitators to intervention success.
References
Castiglione, S.A. & Ritchie, J. A. (2012). Moving into action: We know what practices we want to change, now what? An implementation guide for health care practitioners. Canadian Institutes of Health Research.
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Witteman, H. O., Chipenda Dansokho, S., Colquhoun, H., Fagerlin, A., Giguere, A., Glouberman, S., Haslett, L., Hoffman, A., Ivers, N. M., Légaré, F., Légaré, J., Levin, C. A., Lopez, K., Montori, V. M., Renaud, J. S., Sparling, K., Stacey, D., & Volk, R. J. (2018). Twelve lessons learned for effective research partnerships between patients, caregivers, clinicians, academic researchers, and other stakeholders. Journal of general internal medicine, 33(4), 558–562.