Table 2 A Public Involvement Strategy for the Ontario Wait Time Strategy

Public Involvement Foci

Operational Plan

Shared Decision-making

1) Create positions for public members on the expert panels

→ assign public positions on each panel

→ provide a workshop to educate citizens and experts of their roles and responsibilities

2) Construct a Citizen's Panel, consisting of the assembled public members from the expert panels, to collaborate with the OWTS and provide ongoing advice on priority setting (The Council can also act as an advisory body for other areas of health care priority setting, i.e. wait times, drugs, mental health, etc.)

→ provide education for citizens and experts pertaining to their responsibilities and mandate

→ present council with information on priority options and their consequences – have them consider how to prioritize options

→ consider broad health system priorities – i.e. should better chronic disease management be a priority over waiting lists

Focused Outreach

1) Conduct deliberate polling exercises with the purpose of determining which health service areas should be included in the OWTS

→ this information will be used to help the OWTS select future target services and areas of focus

2) Conduct a series of focus groups with the purpose of understanding the public's views on the priority rating tools and benchmarks

→ this information will be used to help refine the current and develop new priority rating tools and benchmarks

→ some existing benchmarks have accounted for the presumed psychological impact of waiting – concrete public consultation regarding the lived experience will allow the psychological burden of waiting to be properly accounted for in the benchmarks

Feedback and Appeals Mechanism

1) Create a feedback section on the OWTS website to solicit general feedback on the priority setting activities