Guest blog by: Stacey Daub, Board Member, The Change Foundation & VP, Strategy, Integration and Digital Health at North York General Hospital; former Member and Vice Chair, Ontario Hospital Association Board

I remember clearly the first time I met The Change Foundation's Panorama Panel, which was a diverse group of 31 Ontarians who were using their healthcare experiences, both good and bad, to make the system better for everyone. This was in 2012, when the suggestion that we should, and could, shift power from healthcare providers and actively partner with patients to redesign health and social care was a truly trailblazing idea. Since that time, The Change Foundation has made patient and caregiver partnerships the core of their work. More importantly, they have shared their knowledge and evidence of impact far and wide, to the point that we have now moved from engagement to truly embedding patients as partners in co-design in many healthcare organizations.

Over time, I have worked with thousands of remarkable patient, caregiver and citizen leaders. Each person has had a unique influence on me. Recently I lost a very dear friend, colleague and world-class patient co-design extraordinaire, Eileen Dahl.

I met Eileen when I was the President & CEO of Headwaters Health Care Centre. She contacted me to share some feedback. She was spirited, direct and respectful, and she had one clear and unwavering intention: to make her community hospital even better. She managed, in one short phone call, to fire up many new and exciting ways to think about co-design and tap into the power of people. Since that time, she became one of my closest collaborators. We worked side-by-side on a variety of efforts to make things better for the patients, care providers and the community we served. Without exception, Eileen had a profound impact on everyone she met. She was smart, determined and never shy about flipping an idea or perspective on its head, just to make sure each idea was explored in every way possible.

In honour of Eileen's legacy, I want to share three ways Eileen inspired me to think differently: People are Multidimensional, Don't Box Them In; Rethinking Vulnerability; Resiliency as a Superpower.

Read the full blog on The Change Foundation's website.