The Institute for Family-Centered Care is pleased to partner with the Samueli Institute for the May 27-30, 2008 Intensive Training Seminar, Hospitals and Communities Moving Forward with Patient- and Family-Centered Care, in Bethesda, MD.

The Samueli Institute, a non-profit scientific research organization founded in 2001, is providing leadership support for our Bethesda Seminar. Traditionally such support is provided by the Seminar’s host hospitals. One of the unique characteristics of our partner is that the Samueli Institute focuses on complementary and integrative medicine, optimal healing environments, brain-mind and healing, and military medical research.

The mission of the Samueli Institute is “to transform health care through the scientific exploration of healing.” The Samueli Institute envisions “a world in which healing processes are the formative concept for achieving and maintaining wellness and ameliorating chronic disease.” Therefore, it investigates healing processes and their applications in promoting health and wellness, preventing illness, and treating disease. Read More.....

JUST RELEASED  Free Download
The Institute for Family-Centered Care is delighted to announce the release of Partnering with Patients and Families to Design a Patient- and Family-Centered Health Care System: Recommendations and Promising Practices.

This publication, with funding support from the California HealthCare Foundation, is based on the deliberations and key recommendations that emerged from a unique meeting convened by the Institute for Family-Centered Care in collaboration with the Institute for Healthcare Improvement and funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Highlighted are examples of best practices drawn from hospitals, ambulatory programs, medical and nursing schools, funders of health care, patient- and family-led organizations, and other health care entities. These organizations are making exemplary progress in partnering with patients and families to enhance quality and safety and to improve the experience of care.

The Institute offers the entire publication as a free download. Printed copies are available for purchase.

For more information on the meeting, see Partnering with Patients and Families . . . A Roadmap for the Future, also a free download.

We need your help:  Recently we have received e-mails and phone calls from Institute supporters asking about the status of Pinwheel Pages, our E-newsletter. Pinwheel Pages is published nine times a year. Some subscribers have not been receiving it regularly. We are investigating to see if the trouble is limited to isolated instances, or whether it is part of a larger problem.

If people are having trouble receiving this E-newsletter, why is this article here? Well, maybe you are reading someone else's copy, a printed version, or perhaps you are reading it in the archives on our website. Read More

   ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

What's Happening in Calgary? Hospitals and Communities Moving Forward with Patient- and Family-Centered Care!

Primary Care Networks, Chronic Disease Self-Management, Information Technology/Electronic Health Records

And

Hospital Tours, Fun Excursions, Skits, and More!

Our last two Intensive Seminars completely sold out months ahead of time. If you plan to attend the Calgary Seminar, please consider registering today. Seminar space is limited. Registration to date, coupled with maximum attendance at the last two seminars, suggests another sell out. Reserve your seat at the table now to assure that you won't miss this highly anticipated experience sponsored by the largest fully integrated publicly funded health care system in Canada.

The Institute for Family-Centered Care warmly welcomes Cezanne Garcia, MPH, CHES, as a member of the Institute’s team. The Institute is delighted that Cezanne, one of our seminar faculty members, has joined our staff. Look for a profile on Cezanne in an upcoming issue of Pinwheel Pages.

In the meantime, you can hear Cezanne, along with Brandelyn Bergstedt, on Andrew Schorr’s nationally syndicated radio show, Patient Hour, talking about Patient and Family-Centered Care: Addressing family and patient needs when a loved one is hospitalized.  

The program first aired on Sunday, September 23, 2007, when Cezanne was Associate Director of Patient and Family Centered Care and Education at the University of Washington Medical Center. Brandelyn is a member of the University of Washington Medical Center’s NICU Advisory Council and an advisor to other parents and to the staff.

One of the unique features of the Hospitals and Communities Moving Forward with Patient- and Family-Centered Care Intensive Seminars is the opportunity to create action plans for patient- and family-centered change, individualized for each hospital or health system.

Pinwheel Pages will feature updates, summaries, accomplishments, and the plans for future patient-and family- centered care projects in select health care systems, hospitals, and community practices.

This is the first monthly Action Plan Update:

Project DOCC (Delivery of Chronic Care) improves the quality of care for severely chronically ill children by educating pediatricians-in-training about their special needs from a parent's perspective. Project DOCC is now a part of the training of over 800 medical residents at 20 hospitals in the United States and Australia. It has trained hundreds of family members to act as “family faculty,” educating young physicians through home visits, parent interviews, and grand rounds presentations.

Rachel Wittenberg, a parent coordinator for Project DOCC in Atlanta, wrote for her action plan:

Over the next four months, I will be incorporating the principles of patient- and family-centered care that I learned into the ongoing training of our 14 parent trainers. They will then have the resources and confidence to teach the pediatric residents from Morehouse and Emory. . . In addition, we will incorporate these principles into our existing training curriculum, so that all new parent trainers will also have the knowledge. I will meet with DOCC's two Physicians in Charge to discuss ways for them to adopt these principles and model this behavior to the residents when meeting with families in the clinics.

Pinwheel Pages will feature an Action Plan Update every month. To be included Join our Community.