While there is increased interest for pain researchers to integrate patient partners into their research teams, many still struggle with understanding emerging best practices and are looking for practical tools that will help them include patient partners, with an EDI focus, into their research workflow. The risk of undertaking patient partnered research without such tools and knowledge is that harm will come to patient partners and their contributions won’t be effectively applied to the research endeavour. Creating and adapting practical tools that go beyond checklists can help to ensure that researchers are working with patient partners throughout the research process. Adapting existing best practice tools, including how to recruit, onboard, and compensate patient partners, can help labs/institutions integrate best practices to their own, unique settings. The results are more rewarding partnerships with more diverse patient partners.