Editorial Review Process
Emergency Care BC (ECBC) prides itself on publishing high-quality, practical resources using a collaborative approach that relies on expert development and validation.
Our resources are developed and reviewed by B.C.-based clinical experts. Some resources are developed with student engagement, where the student is supported and supervised by B.C. emergency practitioner mentors. Resources are only published after reviews by appropriate experts and a stamp of approval is provided by Dr. Julian Marsden, Provincial Medical Lead, Clinical Quality. After a resources is posted, we encourage users to comment and suggest improvements as appropriate.
Emergency Patient Discharge Education Materials Development Process
To ensure our emergency patient discharge education materials meet high standards of clinical accuracy and accessibility, we follow a comprehensible development and review process.
We take special care with patient-focused resources to ensure they meet the needs of patients discharged from the emergency department, and their support circle.
Working closely with Patient Partners to review and approve our materials, materials undergo an internal review process to ensure that they adhere to health literacy principles. Our review process incorporates tools validated in health literacy literature, including an adapted version of the Patient Education Materials Assessment Tool (PEMAT ). After internal review and approval from the Clinical Review team, Patient Partners provide feedback on the readability of our resources. Once these resources have been refined based on Patient Partner input, they receive our “Patient Approved Stamp” to signify that they have met our rigorous standards.
Our patient discharge education materials use a validated tool and guidance materials developed by research led by Dr. Emily Stewart – Improving Patient Discharge Sheets in Collaboration with the BC Emergency Medicine Network: A Quality Improvement Initiative. Masters Capstone Dissertation. University of British Columbia; 2022.
Clinical Resource development is overseen by our Provincial Medical Lead, Clinical Quality and our Provincial Lead, Clinical Initiatives and Innovation, to ensure clinical accuracy and quality.
We strive to review and re-validate resources regularly and are actively working through a back catalogue of resources to meet this standard. If you have interest supporting the clinical resources review committee, please let us know.
For further information or inquiries, please contact ecbc@phsa.ca.
Authorship Guidelines
ECBC provides high-quality, practical resources for practitioners, patients and their families across B.C. Ensuring our resources meet the highest bar means that multiple experts review and validate the content prior to publishing.
ECBC follows the gold-standard of authorship guidelines, and takes the responsibility and accountability of these published resources very seriously. ECBC strives to ensure that intellectual contributions are appropriately recognized. Students and residents are at times involved in developing materials but are not responsible or accountable for the final published content. This responsibility rests with ECBC and the emergency practitioner supervising author.
ECBC’s authorship policy includes a review process for clinical resources, ensuring these tools remain valid sources of information. ECBC is currently developing a more robust review process for clinical resources and we are working to put the appropriate infrastructure in place.
Practically, these authorship guidelines require the emergency practitioner or expert to be listed as first author, followed by other contributing authors with their appropriate designation. This is in keeping with the policies of other organizations who produce guidelines and recommendations that potentially affect patient care. This policy is also in keeping with our Network’s principle that the information must be vetted by practitioners experienced in providing emergency care.
We greatly rely on the B.C. emergency community to produce and review clinical resources, and trust that this policy will ensure your contributions continue to be appropriately recognized while maintaining their merit as a trusted source of emergency practice support information accessible across the province.
Copyright Policy
Sharing ECBC Resources
ECBC publishes our content under an open access license, specifically CC BY-SA 4.0 unless otherwise indicated.
As a Network that strives to facilitate excellent patient care throughout B.C., we readily encourage the use, distribution, and adaptation of our content.
When using our content, please be sure to give appropriate credit, indicate any changes that are made to our content, and distribute your new versions under the same CC BY-SA 4.0 license. No legal or technological measures may be applied to our material (or an adaptation) to restrict what is permitted under the license.
Copyright Guidelines for Content Contributors
ECBC publishes under open access licenses. All images, tables, and algorithms used within our material must be either created by the author (who agrees to release it under an open license) or the material must be licensed by others under an open license.
When submitting material from others please provide the URL and the specific license. These copyright requirements do not apply when simply linking to other websites or using freely viewable YouTube videos.
Useful sources of open access medical images include:
– Wikimedia Commons
– NC Commons
– DermNet NZ
– US CDC
– Open-i
Using material directly from sites such as UpToDate, textbooks, or the American Heart Association, among others, is not permitted.
