The Institute is pleased to announce that our intensive training seminar, Hospitals and Communities Moving Forward with Patient- and Family-Centered Care will be offered in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. The seminar, presented with leadership support from the Calgary Health Region, will be held at The Westin Calgary, on October 27-30, 2008. Interested in sending a team to this upcoming seminar?  You may register now.

A sampling of topics includes: creating patient and family safety councils, applying patient- and family-centered concepts to primary care and the medical home, designing facilities to support patient- and family-centered practice, developing end-of-life care programs and resources, and executive leadership for transformative change. Faculty members from Wales, Canada and the United States will bring an amazing breadth of experience to the seminar.

The Calgary Health Region (CHR) is one of the largest publicly funded health care systems in Canada. The Calgary Health Region's mission statement, "leaders in health--a partner in care," speaks to the commitment to patient- and family-centered care. Recognizing that the provision of care is not the same as the experience of illness—both perspectives are needed—CHR created a patient Experience Team in 2005. This team is working toward advancing a regional understanding of patient- and family-centered care; implementing policies and practices that support patient- and family-centered care; fostering respectful relationships, and embracing collaborative involvement of patients and families in all facets of the health system.

Participants will have the opportunity to tour Calgary’s new Alberta Children's Hospital, the first free-standing pediatric facility to be built in more than twenty years. Given the history of engaging families in advisory councils for pediatrics, the CHR included families and patients in the planning of this new facility. A family leader served on the project's steering committee. CHR sought input from not only parents of patients, but also from the patients themselves. One young person involved in the process insists, "The entire architectural structure is completely different from the original plan just because of what the kids wanted."

Early Bird Registration ends on August 4, 2008. Don't miss what is sure to be an exhilarating and intensive experience.

The Institute for Family-Centered Care is proud to issue a Call for Papers for The 4th International Conference on Patient- and Family-Centered Care to be held in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, August 27-30, 2009, with leadership support from The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. All abstracts must be submitted online by September 28, 2008.

The 4th International Conference will showcase innovative health care programs that are committed to patient- and family-centered care and meaningful collaboration with patients and families. Priority consideration will be given to presentation teams that include health care professionals and patient/family leaders.

The Institute strongly encourages creative and innovative ways of presenting material. Abstracts will be accepted for presentations, videos, and posters. One of the highlights of The 3rd International Conference held in Seattle, WA, was the well-attended video theatre. We hope you will consider submitting your organization’s patient- and family-centered informational and educational videos, as well as any orientation and training material that highlight patient- and family-centered best practices.

The Process: Abstracts must be submitted online by September 28, 2008. You will need to register your email address in order to submit an abstract. Once registered, you will receive full instructions via email. (If you are unable to submit online, please contact us at 301-652-0281.) Abstracts will be reviewed by Institute staff for completeness and accuracy, and will be submitted to external reviewers. Authors will be notified in January 2009 regarding abstract status. Read the entire submission process.

One of the unique features of the Hospitals and Communities Moving Forward with Patient- and Family-Centered Care Intensive Training Seminars is the opportunity to create action plans for patient- and family-centered change, individualized for each hospital or health system. This month we are featuring the accomplishments of Mt. Sinai Hospital, Toronto, Canada. Mt. Sinai Hospital has sent 14 teams, more than 100 staff and patient and family leaders, to Institute seminars.

In October 2006, a multidisciplinary group of staff from the Surgery and Oncology Centre of Excellence
attended the intensive PFCC Seminar in Dearborn, Michigan. On return, they conducted an 8-hour Interdisciplinary Workshop and 30 staff attended. The entire group chose to make changes to the physical environment and culture by removing glass partions at Nursing Stations and changing signage at Patient Family Lounges.

Perhaps, most significantly, they started Patient and Family Rounds with the Orthopaedic team.  In January 2007, Dr. Gross, an Orthopaedic Surgeon, established a set day and time for Patient- and Family-Centered Rounds. By specifying the time for rounds, team members could plan their schedule so they could attend consistently and invite patients and their families to be involved, if they desired. At first, only a few patients' families were present and Dr. Gross joked, "Team members outnumbered families!" Now, a year and a half later, most patients have family members present, often with a list of well thought out questions for the team. All of the Orthopaedic Surgeons now have established days and times for their team rounds that encourage family presence.

In 2008, a psychiatrist and team members from Mt. Sinai's Department of Psychiatry attended the Hospitals and Communities Moving Forward with Patient- and Family-Centered Care Intensive Training Seminar in Atlanta.  Introductory Grand Rounds were conducted immediately following the team's return from Atlanta and a cross-departmental/interdisciplinary PFCC working group (with the addition of staff who did not attend the Atlanta meeting) was developed. Subsequently, the PFCC group identified a patient advisor, who has made suggestions for preliminary action items and is part of the group which presented Grand Rounds Part 2, Friday, June 27, 2008.

The Department of Psychiatry group has begun to change some of the signage in the family meeting room, plans to identify and train new advisors, and host a Town Hall meeting for in-patient and out patient staff members, patients, and their families later this summer.

The Institute wants to congratulate Mt. Sinai Hospital and give their team members an opportunity to feel good about their endeavors, each other, the successes they have attained, and the challenges they have addressed together.

Send your progress reports to Institute@iffcc.org if you don't hear from us soon. And stay tuned to read more about the exciting work occurring throughout North America.

We hope that those of you who attended the Hospitals and Communities Moving Forward with Patient- and Family-Centered Care intensive seminar found this experience motivating as you continue to initiate patient- and family-centered change within your organization. Thank you for making the seminar a great success! A special thank you to the Samueli Institute for its support.

Here are just a few of the comments from seminar participants:

“Thank you. This is the BEST conference I have attended in my 22-year career as a nurse and Army officer.”

 “Superb - I entered as a skeptic but was seduced!”

“I BELIEVE!” 

“Fantastic conference! The professionalism of the entire faculty staff was amazing, all approachable, all willing to provide support or link us to someone who had expertise and/or experience to address issues completely. Staff obviously are a TEAM and all brought a difference to this great conference!!”
 
“This has been the best organized conference with the most materials that I can take home and put to use that I have ever attended. The faculty is excellent as well as the facility.”
 
“Excellent program - very comprehensive and invaluable in getting up and running; we thought we knew what we were doing!”

“This was so much better than I could have imagined. Thank you for inspiring me and helping to ignite my passion.”
 
“The patient/parent panel was EXTREMELY helpful for me and very powerful."