Patient Family Advisory Councils: Two hospitals' success stories

Each of the hospitals in Massachusetts now has a Patient/Family Advisory Council (PFAC).  The hospitals described their PFACs' activities over the last year, and members of HCFA's Consumer Health Quality Council reviewed, summarized, and tallied the responses, with Deb Wachenheim's help.  The CHQC members identified two hospitals' PFACs as role models, to be emulated by other hospitals:  Milford Regional Medical Center, and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.  Leaders of those hospitals' PFACs described their activities at yesterday's meeting of the Massachusetts Coalition for the Prevention of Medical Error.

Kim Munto, the Director of Risk Management at Milford, described their PFAC's activities in her presentation, elaborating on them in a later interview.  Since their PFAC members are particularly attuned to health literacy, the application for prospective PFAC members is written in Spanish and Portugese, as well as in an English version.

Milford's PFAC also completely reworked the hospital's discharge instructions, translating clinical language into terms more often used by laymen.  The PFAC's suggestions greatly clarified the instructions about medications, e.g., which ones to stop taking, which to continue taking, and in what doses.  The PFAC also stimulated changes to the forms used to accurately convey information on patients as they transitioned from the hospital to each of three extended care facilities (ECFs).  The PFAC performed several rounds of intensive review, working with the three outside ECF organizations, in an example of collaboration across healthcare organizations that is all too rare.  

To help Milford begin providing mealtime menus to patients for the first time, the PFAC reviewed the menus and the presentation of the food, and then at a PFAC meeting, ordered dinners from the menu, which were delivered to the conference room.

For Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Barbara Sarnoff Lee, the Director of Social Work, and Elana Premack Sandler, Project Leader for Patient and Family Engagement, described their four PFACs as components of a broader strategy of engaging patients.  BIDMC's Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) had been the first to set up a PFAC, followed by PFACs for the ICU, the entire hospital, and Universal Access.  BIDMC also engages 100 patient advisors in pairs on committee seats, department-specific groups with embedded advisors, focus groups for patients especially concerned with a single issue, and ad hoc projects.  

A PFAC member had mentioned how much easier it was to heal when it was quiet at night.  The hospital applied best practices to quiet the patient areas, creating a notable improvement in the eyes of patients surveyed in HCAHPS:  33% more patients said it was always quiet at night after these changes (60%) than before (45%).  

BIDMC had noticed an opportunity for improvement in pastoral and spiritual support for patients, based on FS-ICU (Family Satisfaction - Intensive Care Unit) data. Following redesign efforts with feedback, the FS-ICU scores improved.  Another effort, to improve the ICU's waiting rooms, also raised FS-ICU scores.  In a ripple effect of the improvement, seeing the change, hospital administrators then awarded more funds for renovating the waiting rooms. 

These are merely a few examples of many more at these hospitals, and indeed, at many other hospitals in the state. The Consumer Health Quality Council hopes to encourage hospitals to test and adapt these practices so their patients can also benefit.

This blog post was written by Ken Farbstein, a long-time member of the Consumer Health Quality Council, and professional patient advocate at Patient AdvoCare.