October 2022
Dear Community Advocate,
This past spring, B.C. Seniors Advocate, Isobel Mackenzie, announced the commissioning of the BC Office of Patient-
Centred Measurement (OPCM) to implement a province-wide sector survey to hear the voices of the 29,000+ seniors
living in 294 publicly-subsidized care homes across all regions of BC. Every resident will be invited to participate in
an in-person interview conducted by trained volunteers. The survey will ask residents about their experience of care
and their satisfaction with the quality of care and services they receive. In addition, each resident’s family and
frequent visitors will be invited to complete a survey about their own experiences. The rich information collected
from the resident interviews and family/frequent visitor surveys will be an important source of information for the
Seniors Advocate to identify system wide issues.
This is the second time in the province that we have sought out these collective perspectives of residents and their
family members/visitors in this way and on this level of magnitude. In 2016-17, over 800-trained volunteers donated
25,000 hours of their time to conduct in-person interviews with seniors, helping us capture the voices of almost
10,000 residents from across the province.
The resident survey could not be conducted without the support of volunteers in every region of the province. We
would be most grateful, if you are able to share the attached volunteer recruitment poster in your community and
on your social media channels.
If you are interested or you know of anyone who might be interested in volunteering as a Surveyor please apply:
• Online: www.surveybcseniors.org/volunteer
• Call: 1-877-952-3181
There has been much to navigate in terms of Infection Prevention protocols to ensure residents, care home staff
and our volunteer surveyors stay safe. We are grateful for the support of Providence Health Care’s IPAC team for
working with us to develop and implement the protocols. All volunteers will be screened and if suitable will
participate in our surveyor training program and will be asked for a commitment of at least 40 hours over
approximately a 6-8 week period.
If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me via email (ejurek@providencehealth.bc.ca) or phone (778-
675-8873). You can also contact Jessica Kleissen, our Project Manager, via email (JKleissen1@providenchealth.bc.ca)
or phone (604-365-0379).
We hope you will support our efforts to ensure the experiences and voices of nearly 30,000 seniors living in longterm
care in our province are heard.
Sincerely,
Emily Jurek
Region Engagement Lead
Office of Patient-Centred Measurement
British Columbia Ministry of Health
I respectfully and humbly acknowledge that I live, work and play as a guest on the traditional, ancestral, and unceded lands of the Lheidli-
T’enneh people and that the BC Office of Patient-Centred Measurement is on the unceded traditional homelands of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh Nations. With this acknowledgment, I thank those who still live on and care for these lands we now call British Columbia
