Over the last few months, Diabetes Action Canada held two Members Forum meetings – one in English and one in French. These events brought together the broader Diabetes Action Canada community to share their thoughts on our Network and learn from our broader community.

The feedback received was excellent and is helping the organization with planning for 2020 and beyond. Below, is an overview of some of the ideas that were shared.

Communication:

Community members voiced a number of suggestions about how to share our message—everything from moderated sessions to blogs and video chats. A few highlights:

• Patient Partners reminded our researchers of the need to provide opportunities for feedback on research underway—and to share that research in language that is understandable to everyone.
• There was a request for more bilingual content and for more opportunities for our French-speaking Patient Partners to apply their experiences to research programs.
• Members wanted to see stronger partnerships with our institutional partners’ communications teams to create more opportunities and awareness of our Network.
• A media outreach strategy was suggested, as well as a focus on covering our events “as they happen” instead of after the fact.

Knowledge Translation:

Sharing the robust findings of the Diabetes Action Canada Network was a key part of these discussions. This included engaging policy-makers in research activities to better engage government at all levels and expand our reach to target more at-risk communities in their language of choice.

Research Planning:

Research continues to be the cornerstone of the work Diabetes Action Canada does and our members had many thoughts on ways to amplify the findings and better integrate those living with diabetes and other health care providers into the process. There was discussion of how to involve all members of the diabetes care circle, including social workers, pharmacists, diabetes educators, nurses and dietitians. Other suggestions involved including basic scientists in the network, giving Patient Partners an opportunity to share ideas for new research projects before they are planned, and engaging Patient Partners with research happening in their region.

The Diabetes Action Canada team looks forward to more of these discussions and to finding ways to implement as many of these suggestions as possible.