Background
Shifting the blame from healthcare providers in an adverse event(i.e., medication errors, unsafe surgical procedures, patient falls, etc.) to understanding the actual systemic root cause of an adverse event is called ‘Just Culture’. The Just Culture Assessment Tool (JCAT) measures and directs resources toward improving Just Culture for patient safety.
This research aims to understand how patient and resident physicians perceive Just Culture in Alberta Health Services (AHS) and revise the JCAT for use among those populations.

Roles and Responsibilities
We are seeking two patient research partners, who are members of an equity-denied group (women, Indigenous peoples, racialized peoples, people with disabilities, LGBTQ2S+) and /or have lived experience of safety issues and/or adverse events reporting with healthcare, to join our working group to co-produce research outputs. Patient partners will be directly engaged with the study design, data collection, analysis methods and the dissemination of research.

Patient partners will be invited to recruit research participants from their peer networks. A focus group guide will be created in collaboration with patient partners for the collection of qualitative data. Patient partners will have the opportunity to co-lead focus groups, taking field notes and asking study participants clarification questions. Partners will assist with the data analysis coding qualitative focus group data and identifying patient-relevant themes. During the data analysis stage, regular meetings will be held with patient partners to ensure reflexivity and consensus with identified themes from the qualitative data.

Patient partners will provide their unique perspectives in revising the Just Culture Assessment Tool (JCAT) survey instrument, ensuring patient priorities are being supported and measured. Patient partners may also have the opportunity to highlight their experiences through writing for publication in academic journals and news articles as well as presentations at academic conferences.

Time commitment
This project anticipates to start June 1, 2024. Research partner time commitment is for 12 months. Research partners will be asked to share insights, ideas and feedback to the research design and methods in 1-hour long monthly meetings hosted in-person at the University of Calgary Foothills Campus or online. There may be an additional monthly meeting depending on the stage of the research.

Compensation/Reimbursement
The time spent collaborating on producing research outputs can be reflected in many ways such as an honorarium ($25/hour), gift cards ($25/hour) and volunteer hours.
We are open to hearing partner’s thoughts on other ways we can recognize their time and essential contributions.
Direct costs for in-person engagement such as parking will be reimbursed.