The PFAC Action Plan is designed to help the PFAC team create an action plan to address priority areas of opportunity.

The Example PFAC Action Plan illustrates one hospital’s goals and plans to improve PFA representativeness.

The PFAC team should use the PFAC Action Plan to identify:

• specific goal(s) and objective(s) for advancing the PFAC program;
• actions, changes, and resources needed to achieve goals;
• assignments for who will carry out the changes;
• timelines for when changes will take place;
• milestones for assessing progress; and
• plans for sustainability.

Review the action plan with hospital leaders, the PFAC team, PFAs, and others who will have responsibility for specific actions. Make sure everyone understands the plan along with their assigned roles and responsibilities.

As work proceeds, update the PFAC Action Plan to capture and record progress and reflect what is required to accomplish the goal(s). Track whether a step took more or less time than anticipated, what resources were needed, and what practices were effective or not effective. Identify challenges that affected progress along with strategies that were used to address challenges.

Information adapted from: Community Toolbox: Developing a Strategic Plan and Organizational Structure Action Plan

Example: PFA-Driven Action Plans

A children’s hospital viewed PFA input and leadership as critical for maintaining a member-driven direction for the work and increasing impact in areas that mean most to patients and families. During their strategic planning cycle, the PFAC leadership team completed the PFAC Assessment. Next, they reviewed responses from the PFAC experience survey, conducted annually with all PFAs, to identify areas where the PFAC program could improve processes. Finally, the PFAC leadership team developed a dashboard to identify intersections between areas of opportunity identified by the assessment, opportunities identified from the PFA survey, and hospital-level strategic priorities. This information was then shared back to PFAC members for review and feedback and to discuss specific strategic goals. Once the strategic goals were defined, PFAC members had co-leadership roles on workgroups formed to execute the action plan, creating shared responsibility and accountability for action.

Example: Creating Opportunities for Quick Wins

PFAs can help ensure that action plans and goals are realistic and achievable. In the process of completing their PFAC action plan, leaders at one hospital shared draft SMART goals with family leaders. Family leaders shared that many of the goals were high-level “reach” activities that required a significant amount of time to implement. They requested that the action plan also include goals that were actionable and achievable in the short-term. As a result, the PFAC team developed an action plan that included several shorter-term goals (i.e., “quick wins”) to make meetings more inclusive and welcoming, such as developing group norms, sending an agenda at least one week in advance of any meeting, and providing a written meeting summary with action items within one week.

Example: Aligning Priorities with Organizational Strategy

PFAC members at one hospital are actively involved in the PFAC strategic planning process, which occurs approximately every three years. Prior to developing PFAC goals, PFAC leads dedicate time at a PFAC meeting to review and discuss the hospital’s strategic goals and continuous improvement initiatives. The group develops PFAC goals and prioritizes them based on feasibility, impact, and relevance to hospital priorities. This helps ensure that the PFAC action plan is linked with and supports hospital enterprise goals, which in turn helps garner leadership support for PFAC work and foster accountability. The PFAC action plan serves as a living roadmap that is revisited on a regular basis and adjusted as needed. To facilitate this process, the hospital developed a dashboard that includes color coding (green, yellow, and red) for each item on the PFAC action plan to visually indicate progress on specific priorities.