The Institute for Patient- and Family-Centered Care collaborated with the Committee on Hospital Care of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) in releasing the Patient- and Family-Centered Care and the Pediatrician's Role. This revised AAP policy statement, co-written by Jerrold Eichner, MD, FAAP, Chair of the AAP Committee on Hospital Care 2007-2011, and Beverley Johnson, President and CEO of the Institute for Patient- and Family-Centered Care, provides recommendations to promote patient- and family-centered care "throughout the health care system, including education of professionals, health care systems planning and facility design, and research."

The Academy first adopted a policy statement on Family-Centered Care and the Pediatrician's Role in 2003, and reaffirmed this policy statement in May 2007. An important difference in this 2012 revised policy statement is that the term "family-centered care" is replaced with the term "patient- and family-centered care"...  Read More...

Atlanta Seminar Agenda Announced

The Institute is proud to include a variety of new sessions in the upcoming Hospitals and Communities Moving Forward with Patient- and Family-Centered Care Intensive Training Seminar, March 19-22, in Atlanta, Georgia. New sessions are added that support the U.S. government’s new health care initiative, the Partnership for Patients: Better Care, Lower Costs, a public-private partnership to help improve the quality, safety, and affordability of health care. These sessions, in addition to the nearly 60 other sessions, address the Partnership for Patients’ goals of keeping patients from getting injured or sicker, and helping patients heal without complications—specifically, reducing readmissions, decreasing infections, and providing safe care transitions. The following are just a sampling of the new offerings:

• Caring for Older Adults with Complex Conditions: Building Partnerships across the Continuum of Care
• Partnerships for Infection Prevention: It Takes a Team
  
• The Emory Healthcare Bedside Shift Report Bundle™—How Patient/Family Advisors Help Gain Nurse Engagement in Patient- and Family-Centered Care
• Expanding Across the System: Strategies for Developing Patient- and Family-Centered Care in Ambulatory Settings

Check out the Agenda for the Atlanta Seminar to see the comprehensive programming.

Previous Seminar Participants Jump Start Culture Change with Individualized Action Plans

One of the benefits of attending an Intensive Training Seminar is the opportunity to work each day in a small group with a faculty advisor and create an individualized action plan to implement upon return to your organization. See how three organizations—all of whom are Institute Pinwheel Sponsors that have sent teams to Institute trainings seminars—have successfully embraced patient- and family-centered care using seminar-generated individualized actions plans:

• In this news report about patient- and family-centered care at the University of Louisville Hospital, Anna Smith, the administrative director of their Emergency and Trauma Service, explains how families of patients can be more involved in the care of their loved ones while in the hospital.
  
• On both the Newark and Wilmington campuses of Christiana Care, hospital staff and leaders expanded initiatives that are transforming the patient experience. In October 2010, led by President and CEO Robert Laskowski, MD, staff members signed a Patient- and Family-Centered Pledge. Check out "A Conversation About Patient- and Family-Centered Care" produced by Christiana Care.
• Patient- and family-centered care is now a hallmark of Johns Hopkins Children's Center, where parents are active members of their child's health care team. When Johns Hopkins opens the doors to its new 205-bed children's hospital in April 2012, families and visitors will enter a world for 21st century pediatric medicine—designed with the active participation of families.

Consider sending a team to the March 2012 Intensive Training Seminar in Atlanta, to start—or advance—the practice of patient- and family-centered care in your organization.

The Intensive Training Seminar often sells out, so   

now TO REGISTER while space is still available.

Also, MAKE YOUR HOTEL RESERVATIONS soon in order to receive the special discount rate, which is available until February 27th or until the rooms sell-out, whichever comes first.

The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) released a toolkit to help hospitals understand and use AHRQ's Quality Indicators (QIs) to successfully improve quality and patient safety. The toolkit provides guidance to using improvement methods, with a particular focus on the QIs. The RAND Corporation and the University Health System Consortium created this free toolkit with funding from AHRQ. This toolkit underwent a field test, evaluation, and revisions in response to feedback from six hospitals.

The AHRQ QIs use hospital administrative data to assess the quality of care provided, identify areas of concern in need of further investigation, and monitor progress over time. This toolkit focuses on 17 Patient Safety Indicators (PSIs) and 28 Inpatient Quality Indicators (IQIs). More information on the QIs is available in the toolkit.

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Expanded and Enhanced PFAC Network Listserv....Details Coming in March

National Initiative for Children's Healthcare Quality (NICHQ) released Powerful Partnerships ~ A Handbook for Families and Providers Working Together to Improve Care. This guide is intended to help family members and health care professionals who work together to improve care for children with special health care needs. Family members and providers are increasingly collaborating as equal partners on multidisciplinary teams to improve care. This guide includes information and guidance on how to get the most out of this potentially powerful partnership.

Patient Safety Awareness Week, which will take place March 4-10, 2012, is an annual education and awareness campaign for health care safety led by National Patient Safety Foundation (NPSF). Each year, health care organizations internationally take part in the event by prominently displaying the NPSF campaign logo and promotional materials within their organizations, creating awareness in the community, and utilizing NPSF educational resources among hospital staff and patients.

The theme for 2012 is Be Aware for Safe Care, reflecting the need to involve everyone—from patients to providers to the public—to participate and partner to improve patient safety. The campaign is in alignment with the national Partnership for Patients, a groundbreaking initiative launched earlier this year by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to improve care and reduce costs, in part by reducing all causes of harm in health care. 

Speakerlink^TM ~ Source of Speakers in Health Care Community

SpeakerLink^TM is a new website that seeks to connect speakers who have a message or story that will help health care organizations move forward in improving patient safety and those looking for motivational stories and solutions to health care challenges. Speakers have a variety of backgrounds; including patients with experience engaging in partnerships with hospitals, professional caregivers, health information technology innovators, to name a few. The Speakerlink^TM site does not vet the speakers and does not represent or endorse them.

New Names for UHS of Eastern Carolina and Catholic Healthcare West

Two Institute Pinwheel Sponsors—University Health Systems of Eastern Carolina and Catholic Healthcare West—recently announced new names. University Health Systems of Eastern Carolina is now Vidant Health. Pitt County Memorial Hospital (PCMH), its flagship teaching hospital for the Brody School of Medicine at East Carolina University, is now called Vidant Medical Center. Read more... Catholic Healthcare West is now Dignity Health. Learn more...