KT Connects: Knowledge Translation Webinar Series - Cheryl Koehn

The Michael Smith Foundation of Health Research and Arthritis Research Canada have partnered to co-develop and host a series of monthly expert-led, beginner-level KT training webinars with the goal of developing a sustainable resource for researchers and trainees to learn knowledge and skills that will enable them to develop KT practice in their work.

Title: Citizen as a KT agent: Keeping the government informed about research

Speaker: Cheryl Koehn

Founder & President, Arthritis Consumer Experts

"Citizen KT agents" have unique and varied lived experience, and in part, make up the views of the public-at-large. Their encounters, as patients-consumers, with health policy through publicly delivered health care services inform both health researchers and government. However, formal channels of communicating research results through the patient lens are often lacking and miss the "window of opportunity" to inform government policy development at strategically opportune times.

This webinar focuses on the important role citizens who are patients play in volunteering, working with and bridging the research community and policy maker worlds.

Learning objectives include:

• Discuss the roles of patients as KT agents to bridge evidence and policy decision-making
  
• Recognize the challenges experienced by patients-consumers in advocacy roles
• Identify opportunities to partner with patients-consumers to facilitate evidence-informed decision making

Cheryl Koehn is an arthritis advocate, community leader, published author and rheumatoid arthritis survivor for 28 years. Ms. Koehn has dedicated her life to helping others living with arthritis as well as people with other chronic diseases. She is the founder and president of Arthritis Consumer Experts, a national organization that provides science-based information and education programs in both official languages to people with arthritis. She served as co-chair of the Summit on Standards for Arthritis Prevention and Care, co-founded the Best Medicines Coalition, and was the two-time chair of the Better Pharmacare Coalition. Ms Koehn is presently the consumer representative board member of the Arthritis Alliance of Canada.