Patient and Family Engagement (PFE)
Each year at the Annual TIPQC Meeting, we feature prominent local and national Patient & Family Engagement (PFE) leaders. In 2018,
Tanya Lord, PhD shared her personal journey and her inspiring life work to include Patients and Families in all areas of healthcare.
Patient and Family Centered Care involves four aspects: dignity and respect, meaningful information sharing, participation, and collaboration. According to the Institute for
Patient & Family Centered Care it is “an approach to the planning, delivery, and evaluation of health care that is grounded in mutually beneficial partnerships among health care providers, patients, and families.”
Tanya states,
“It’s time to think about how many lives would be positively impacted if we … started truly working in partnership with patients and families...”
As we move ahead in 2018 with new projects, we are encouraging every team to include patients & families on their Quality Improvement Project teams. Patients & Families bring a new viewpoint to the work we are doing….”not to them, but with them.” IHI also has great resources for giving
patients and families the tools to be health care improvers.
A recent article,
“Family Involvement in Quality Improvement: From Bedside Advocate to System Advisor” by Joanna Celenza, Denise Zayack, Madge Buus-Frank, and Jeffrey Horbar describes the Vermont Oxford Network (VON) journey to include patients & families. The authors state, “Despite the dialogue that was initiated almost 25 years ago, potential remains for deeper and farther-reaching impact of family advisors as quality improvement agents." According to the
Framework for Family Involvement in quality improvement, five (5) levels are possible from PFE surveys, occasional reviewers and consultants to active members or even leaders of QI teams. Possible opportunities in each of these levels is discussed in greater detail in this article. “Without the fully empowered voice of the family recognized from the bedside to the boardroom at the organization and health system level, all efforts …are diminished in legitimacy. If quality improvement is a method we embrace, learning what is important to those served is vital to achieving quality. Partnering with families to improve quality will optimize our success at every level of the health care system.”
Shall we join together in this journey? (This is the question we pose in the
TIPQC PFE JIT module.) We hope you will reach out with any questions, suggestions, and begin or begin again, with us, the journey toward stronger Patient & Family Engagement.
