Registration for The 6th International Conference Now Open!

Registration is now open for The 6th International Conference on Patient- and Family-Centered Care: Partnerships for Quality and Safety, to be held in Vancouver, BC, August 6-8, 2014.

The Conference will showcase innovative health care programs dedicated to partnerships with patients and families to improve outcomes and enhance the quality and safety of health care. Hospitals, community-based programs, public health and mental health agencies, patient- and family-led organizations, physicians, nurses, other health care providers, patient and family advisors and leaders, and those committed to best practices in medical education will make presentations.

Join IPFCC and our conference partners—Providence Health Care, who is providing leadership support, and the Canadian Foundation for Healthcare Improvement, who is providing program support—for this conference. Registration now open.

Update on Abstracts for The International Conference

Thanks to all who submitted abstracts to IPFCC for The 6th International Conference. The response was fantastic! The Institute's large panel of nationally and internationally respected experts in patient- and family-centered care—including patients and family leaders, health care administrators, managers, and clinicians—is reviewing the hundreds of abstracts submitted. In early December, those who submitted abstracts that most clearly address the Conference topic criteria will receive invitations to present. RSVPs for these invitations will be expected by the end of December.

IPFCC's Spring 2014 Intensive Training Seminar Is Going to California!

The IPFCC's Spring 2014 Moving Forward with Patient-
and Family-Centered Care ~ Partnerships for Quality & Safety will be held March 31-April 3, 2014, sponsored in partnership with Stanford Hospital & Clinics, at the 
San Francisco Airport Marriott Waterfront. Registration will be open to the public on Friday, November 22, 2013.

Read more about IPFCC's Intensive Training Seminars.

Looking Forward to the Fall 2013 Intensive Training Seminar in Minnesota

Anticipation is building for IPFCC’s Intensive Training Seminar to be held in Minnesota next week. Thanks to Park Nicollet and Health Partners for providing leadership support for this meeting and to all who have registered to attend. The event is sold out!

Can’t be there? Follow us on Twitter. The IPFCC will be using the hashtag #IPFCCSeminar to Tweet about the seminar, seminar highlights, and wisdom from our faculty and participants. While you are at it, 'Like Us' on Facebook to stay in touch.

Patient- and family-centered care emphasizes collaboration with patients and families of all ages, at all levels of care, and in all health care settings. Families and other care partners, as defined by the patient, are essential to patients' health and well-being, and are especially important for safe transitions and the continuity of care.

To equip hospital leaders with the rationale, tools, and support needed to move forward with changing "visiting" policies, the Institute for Patient- and Family-Centered Care (IPFCC) will be launching a new campaign in 2014. Free tools will be available for hospitals that are beginning to think about changing policies—and for hospitals that have already begun the process but would benefit from additional resources.

Viewing families as partners and allies for quality and safety, and supporting their presence and participation in care and decision-making, requires hospitals not only to change "visiting" policies but also to provide education for clinicians and other staff.

Evidence-based literature supports the idea that maximizing patients' access to their personal support provides benefits to all concerned: patients, families, and care providers. Family presence facilitates communication among families, patients, and clinicians, and provides vital feedback to nurses and physicians, and can enhance individualized care. Evidence suggests that not only is the patient experience of care enhanced, but the safety of care is also improved when loved ones are not treated as "visitors" but instead are viewed as essential partners. The presence of chosen care partners also may decrease the risk of falls, need for medications to "calm" patients, and much more.

Some new resources will be available this fall on the IPFCC website for hospitals to download and use. More details on this exciting new campaign and its Toolkit will be announced in 2014.

IPFCC will debut a Webinar to discuss strategies for involving leadership and frontline staff in changing policy and practice. Registration is now open for the Tuesday, November 12, 2013: Better Together: A How-to for Changing the Concept of Families as "Visitors" in Hospitals webinar.

Perry Spencer, MS, CHPA, CPP, Manager of Uniformed Operations, University of Michigan Health System (UMHS) Security and Entrance Services Department, believes that security's role in patient- and family-centered care (PFCC) can be critical. In his 2012 article, Security's Role in PFCC, [Journal of Healthcare Protection Management, 28(2), 30-34], Perry states, "24/7 family presence is the cornerstone of PFCC" and it is best to include Security personnel in the process. According to Perry, "Security can speed or delay the move to 24/7 family presence. They can exert influence and effort to make it work, or they can do the opposite and resist it through constant fault finding and criticism. The horror stories of disruptive and aggressive families or violent incidents can be used by Security to highlight the potential dangers of family presence or Security can identify them as anomalies that will not increase in frequency with the adoption of family presence." 

Perry speaks to the beneficial aspect of 24/7 family presence on calming an agitated or confused patient, especially those with delirium or dementia. Often the calming voice and familiar face of a loved one will sooth the patient, reducing the need for anti-anxiety drugs or restraints.

At UMHS, members of the Security Department are part of the PFCC infrastructure of the health system, sitting on various Patient and Family Advisory Councils (PFACs) throughout the system, as well as being a part of various multi-disciplinary committees. For hospitals embracing the culture of PFCC, members of the Security staff—often the people patients and families first meet upon entering the hospital—are a vital part of the team. That first encounter can set the tone and the expectations of the patient experience. Members of the UMHS security team screen, as they identify, individuals entering the hospital. These "guest service specialists" use the patient's or family's individualized designation—which identifies two or three "family" members who may be present 24/7, as well as names of individuals who patients and families do not want to see—to determine admittance at the entrance. Because these "specialists" provide screening at the door of the hospital, they also aid in infection control by identifying people who have infections before they are in the hospital, up on a floor, or in the patient's room.

According to Perry, the inclusion of Security "helps form the foundation of a successful and wide spread adoption of PFCC in most large health systems. By becoming an institutional leader in PFCC, Security provides a reassuring influence that family presence will flow smoothly and that any issues will be handled with no or limited disruption.... Finally, taking an active role in the adoption of PFCC will significantly enhance Security's image with the health system."

University of Michigan Hospital & Health Clinic's Security and Entrance Services was the recipient of C.S. Mott's 2012 Evan Newport HOPE Award as the year's outstanding program or service that best exemplifies what patient and family-centered care is all about.

Resource on Patient and Family Engagement

The Hospitals in Pursuit of Excellence (HPOE), the American Hospital Association's platform to accelerate performance improvement and support transformation in hospitals and health systems, released A Leadership Resource for Patient and Family Engagement Strategies. This report provides concrete, practical steps grounded on evidence-based research to improve patient and family engagement.

Bev Johnson, President and CEO of the Institute for Patient- and Family-Centered Care, recently returned from a trip to Doha, Qatar, where she attended a meeting in preparation for the upcoming World Innovation Summit for Health (WISH). Research forums made up of international experts in health care innovation will be producing papers on the following topics: obesity, mental health, accountable care, end-of-life, road traffic injury, patient engagement, antimicrobial resistance, and big data and health care. Bev attended, by invitation, as a member of the patient engagement forum planning group. This research forum's paper will describe patient and family partnerships, their impact, lessons learned, and a set of recommendations.

The WISH meeting will convene in December 2013 in Doha, Qatar. Funding is provided by the Qatar Foundation for Education, Science and Community Development. The Summit is "a high-profile initiative that aims to promote and facilitate innovation in the delivery of health care around the globe." It is designed to build a network of health experts using an interdisciplinary approach to develop best practices that can transform health care policies and systems globally. This Summit will look at ideas "which are evidence-based, scalable, and sustainable." Delegations from more than 30 countries, including representatives from public, private, and academic sectors will attend. 

The Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation is funding a series of awards to Early Career Investigators who are participating in innovative, translational research and who have "demonstrated a high level of interest in the field and the potential for making a significant contribution toward advancing patient and family engagement."

The Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation's Patient Care Program "aims to eliminate preventable harms and unnecessary health care costs by meaningfully engaging patients and families within a redesigned, supportive, redesigned health care system...Not engaging patients and families in their own health care can cause loss of dignity and respect and allow care inconsistent with their wishes and values—harms as real, and as preventable, as medical errors."

Letters of Intent are due October 31, 2013 at 5pm Pacific Standard Time.


IPFCC Welcomes Abbie Davis

IPFCC is delighted to welcome Abbie Davis. As Webinar Coordinator/Meeting Specialist, Abbie works as part of the Special Projects team in planning, organizing, and bringing to the public IPFCC webinars, seminars, and conferences. Abbie spends much of her time on webinar programming—from scheduling, working with faculty, registering and communicating with participants, to handling various technical matters. Abbie also assists the Special Projects team on seminar and conference registration, logistics, and processing publication orders. In addition, Abbie assists with social media, and helps bring advances in technology to IPFCC.

Abbie’s prior work at Groupon Inc. and Chicago Cares provided great experience in customer service, communications, writing, and social media. Abbie’s skills also include volunteer recruitment, events management, and communications facilitation.

Hailing from the Midwest, Abbie majored in Philosophy and English at Kalamazoo College. She enjoys traveling to other cities on the east coast for fun, as well as taking advantage of the opportunity to visit cities all over North America as part of her IPFCC job. Hobbies include trying new seafood dishes, reading, writing, crafting, and spoiling her cat, Buster.

We are happy to have Abbie on the IPFCC team!