Achieving Excellence: Collaborating with Families to Make a Difference in Care

Background:   The harsh reality in 2007 was that less than optimal patient satisfaction scores and the desire to live out patient and family centered care principles required focusing on our culture and a true method of accountability to hold our staff to new standards of excellence.  Our leadership team and the facility associates adopted Vision 2020 which outlined the strategic initiatives for our facility to help us become one of the top hospitals in the country.  The very first bullet in Vision 2020 was to embrace the principles of patient and family centered care.  Since the beginning of this implementation, we have grown our family partners group to over 40 families, developed five family led committees with staff liasons which to impact the culture of this facility to reach specific goals and measure success.

Framework for the talk:   The staff education committee of the family partners council developed a curriculum by which to train family faculty. The goal of this committee is to assist the staff in acquiring knowledge and competencies in patient and family centered principles, skills and attitudes.  The principles are:  Dignity and respect for the family; Complete and unbiased information sharing in ways that are affirming and useful; Family participation in care planning and delivery to provide enhanced control and independence; and family collaboration with clinicians in policies, procedures and staff education.  Family faculty with their committee staff liaison attend staff meetings within the facility and share what each principle means to them with tangible examples where the principles were positively met and examples where things could have gone better.  The team also develops quarterly “Tip Sheets” with examples in the voice of the families to reinforce the principles.  In addition, this group works with other family members to learn to tell and share their stories as well.  

Implications for practice:  Nurses play a key role in promoting patient and family centered care.  When the family can be involved and the principles are followed, the facility goals can be more easily reached with measurable growth in the patient satisfaction scores. Evaluations of presentations reflect that staff walk away with new strategies to impact their practice positively in dealing with families. The use of families to drive home the concept of true patient and family centered care has shown an increase in the facility patient satisfaction scores.