Partnering with Patients & Families

Patients and families offer key insight for quality improvement efforts because they are the directly impacted by the work. For that reason, partnering with patients and families allows for care processes and services to be designed and refined based on patient and family identified needs rather than healthcare professionals’ assumptions. Quality improvement professionals can partner with patients and families in several ways, ranging from feedback on proposed materials or processes, to full participation on an improvement project team.

Key Steps

• Identify points in the process where patients and families are most impacted. This step will enable patients and families to partner with the healthcare team to co-design improvement efforts which is ideal to effectively meet patient needs. 
• Recruit patients and families that represent the patient population that your clinic or organization is serving. Be mindful of barriers that may interfere with their ability to participate (i.e. time of day, transportation, communication/language barriers, etc.).
• Ensure that patient and family partnership is an ongoing goal throughout each stage of the project. It is important to stay curious about your patients and their experiences.

Resources to Get Started

Read	Institute for Patient- and Family-Centered Care (IPFCC) website – The IPFCC provide leadership to advance the understanding and practice of patient- and family-centered care.  Patient and Families presentation – This is a PowerPoint that we use for our Physician Engagement in Quality & Safety (PEQS) Program.
Use	Guide to Patient and Family Engagement in Hospital Quality and Safety –  The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHQR) developed the Guide to Patient and Family Engagement in Hospital Quality and Safety, a tested, evidence-based resource to help hospitals work as partners with patients and families to improve quality and safety. Patient and Family Advisor Recruitment Guide and Onboarding Toolkit – This guide and toolkit, created by Johns Hopkins Medicine in collaboration with the American Medical Association’s “Improving Health Outcomes: Blood Pressure” (IHO: BP) initiative, are intended to help facilitate the recruitment and orientation process for engaging patients and families as advisors in the planning, delivery and evaluation of care in your practice.
Watch	Below are videos about the patient perspective for their respective projects: Clinician as Patient Perspective (Rana Awdish, 2014) (Video – 21:03) Patient Perspective on Improving Communication (Patience Leno, 2018) (Video – 38:13)

Related QI Concepts

• Institutional Review Board (IRB) – Although IRB are not usually required for QI projects, it still is helpful to complete the application process to ensure that patients and families are not harmed when they partner with the healthcare team.
• Process Mapping – A process map can be a helpful tool to see the major touch points with patients and families.
• Root Cause Analysis (RCA) – Patients and families can play a crucial in helping identify potential gaps that may exist in your process.
• Stakeholder Analysis and Engagement – Patient and families are key stakeholders and should be included your stakeholder analysis and engagement process.