The Faces We Serve: an infographic reporting of the communities served by Campbell River & District Hospital An Interdisciplinary Arts Scholar Project

• Main Author: Vanderveen, Jordyn
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: UBC Journal of Family Practice Research and Scholarship 2016
• Subjects: First Nations
• Online Access: http://ojs.library.ubc.ca/index.php/familypractice/article/view/188171

Background: The Campbell River & District General Hospital (CRDGH) is the northernmost full-service hospital on Vancouver Island. It services a diverse collection of communities, ranging from the northern coastal community of Klahoose in Squirrel Cove to Campbell River City proper and the three First Nations communities that reside within the city limits. Unfortunately, personal experience and communication with colleagues, has highlighted that health professionals are not always aware of the impact of travelling for care on patient’s health, resilience and recovery. Admission to CRDGH can be incredibly isolating and challenging for patients, especially those who do not live locally.Methods: This project intends to report and artistically display the proportional representation of communities from which patients travel to seek care at the CRDGH. An infographic painting will be created and displayed at the CRDGH. It is our hope that when patients, community members and hospital staff see this painting, they will (1) develop a deeper appreciation of the distance patients travel to receive care and (2) feel more connected to the hospital because of the recognition of their home community represented in the painting. To assess the effect on our target audience, we will complete a voluntary survey of observers and analyze the results.Results: A painting of an elderly female patient was created using 4,040 dots in 25 different colors. Each dot represents a single patient admitted to the CRDGH in the year 2015. Each color represents the community from which this patient travelled from, as determined by a partial postal code (first five digits). In the top right corner of the painting, a map of Vancouver Island is drawn, on which the communities included are indicated in the color that they are linked to. At the bottom left corner of the image, a bar graph with the relative proportion of patients from each community (with corresponding color) was depicted.This painting will be framed and hung in the CRDGH, next to ...