Patient Partners
Johanna Trimble
I have a long history of patient advocacy for, and interest in, health system improvements that work to increase safer medication use, which spans over 12 years from 2010 to the present. I am a member of several local, provincial, national, and international patient safety organizations. My passion for this work began with experiences of harm from medications within my immediate family. I worked for six years as a public member on the Working Committee on the Polypharmacy Risk Reduction Initiative for BC. We trained and mentored doctors and medical directors working in long term care to do meaningful medication reviews to make sure elders were not on drugs that could harm them or where they were on multiple drugs that were not benefitting their health or quality of life. From this, I became involved with writing the Choosing Wisely Canada recommendations as the public member of the team helping to write the Long-Term Care recommendations.
I have worked for the last six years as a public member on the research team for ActionADE with Dr. Corinne Hohl. Of any projects/research I have worked on in my capacity as a public member with lived experience, this is the most inspiring project I have been involved with. It could save lives. If such a system had been in place a few years ago, my sister-in-law would not have died from being exposed to a drug that had previously harmed her and was re-prescribed because the information was not shared.
Our extended family even now is dealing with a suspected drug interaction or over-medication issue with a member of our family who is in long term care. Given the present fragmented system and lack of transparency and data, we are finding it very difficult to have this situation properly dealt with, even with the years of experience I have with these issues. With proper documentation and the sharing of information I believe we could be much further along the road to resolving this medication issue for someone who, in long-term care, may have a limited time left. I am fully supportive of ActionADE, a much needed, proven, effective, adverse drug event prevention intervention, to be implemented provincially and nationally to ensure the safety of our citizens and loved ones.
Kevin Barry
Kevin has been an active participant in BC’s Patient Voices Network for many years now. His activities within the network involve working with a variety of local, provincial, and national groups.
He retired after a forty-year nursing career in Canada and England in 2018. During his career as an Intensive Care Unit nurse, he nursed a number of patients who had suffered serious health issues as a result of being re-exposed to a drug they had experienced a negative reaction to in the past because critical information on that incident had not been clearly communicated to the patient, their family or members of their healthcare team.
Kevin is a passionate advocate for safe, ethical care being provided to patients and their families. He got involved with the ActionADE project because he believes when successfully concluded it will provide BC citizens with a greater level of confidence in the drug prescribing methods of BC’s healthcare providers and result in improved communication between patients and their healthcare team members.
Laurel Radley
Laurel is a patient and citizen volunteer on the team. She is a member of the CIHR College of Reviewers, a member of the BC SUPPORT Unit Patient Advisory Committee and is the patient member of the BC SUPPORT Unit Interim Governing Council. Laurel has a keen interest in preserving and improving Canada’s publicly funded health care system.
ActionADE is a web-based application that allows providers to document and communicate standardized adverse drug event information to providers in other health settings.