We invite you to register for this month's Informal Conversation: Better and Safer Together: Engaging Patients and Families in Improving Patient Safety. 

Additionally, we encourage you to explore the Pinwheel Pages this month, which is a great resource for learning from the field on ways to advance patient- and family-centered care.

Kind regards,

The IPFCC Team

Upcoming PFCC.Connect Informal Conversation

November 21, 2024 from 12:00 - 1:00 pm ET

Join IPFCC for our next Informal Conversation, Better and Safer Together: Engaging Patients and Families in Improving Patient Safety. Too often medical and diagnostic errors and harms are experienced by patients and families in hospitals, clinics, and other health care settings. Patients and families should be viewed and valued as critical partners in preventing and reducing errors and harms whether in direct care or at the program level. We hope the strategies shared in this conversation will inspire your organization to collaborate with patients and families to improve patient safety.

Thank you to our PFCC.Connect sponsors!

Pam Dardess Joined Camden Coalition Conference's Plenary Panel in October

Pam Dardess, IPFCC's Vice President of Strategic Initiatives and Operations, was a plenary panelist at the Camden Coalition's Putting Care at the Center 2024 Conference in Pittsburgh, PA. Pam joined other leaders from the collaborative INSPIRE effort to talk about how developing authentic partnerships with people with lived experience can help shape care delivery, program design, quality improvement, and governance for healthcare systems.

New Toolkit for Supporting Essential Care Partners

The Ontario Caregiver Organization developed an excellent resource, Essential Care Partner Program Implementation Toolkit: Guide for Hospitals. It offers health care teams and leaders information, guidance, and strategies to develop or improve an Essential Care Partner program and emphasizes that caregivers are essential partners to the health care team. Access the Toolkit.

Family-Led Academic Grand Rounds

Families of children with disabilities or medical complexity have expertise that should be routinely integrated into education at academic medical institutions. The University of Wisconsin-Madison is partnering with the Bluebird Way Foundation to host five Family-Led Academic Grand Rounds (FLAG Rounds) in 2025. If you are a pediatric trainee, faculty learner, medical educator, or are a caregiver, the sessions will be powerful and informative and help you build relationships and partnerships in multidisciplinary teams. All sessions are accessible virtually and will be recorded. Learn more about this learning opportunity and register here.

Families as Essential Care Partners Best Practices

IPFCC is soliciting hospital and health system profiles for the Better Together section of IPFCC's website. We are looking for examples that distinguish care partners (a family member or trusted friend) from social visitors. Many hospitals reinstituted restrictive visiting policies during the COVID pandemic that resulted in harm to both patients and staff. We want to share the learning from hospitals and health systems that recognize the importance of care partners to patient safety, transitions of care, and overall outcomes. If your organization is interested in sharing their best practices, please contact us at institute@ipfcc.org.

The Patient, Family, and Care Partner Advisor Living Toolkit 

Developed with patient and family partners, the PFCA living toolkit outlines best practices and examples for including diverse experiences and voices in healthcare. The toolkit serves as a guide for patients, families, and care partners to effectively engage with decision-makers at all levels to integrate PFCA voices into policy and practices. Access the toolkit here.

National Family Caregivers Month

Every November we celebrate National Family Caregivers Month. While family caregivers should be celebrated every day, this is a time to recognize and honor caregivers nationally, raise awareness around caregiving issues, educate communities, and work to increase support for our nation's caregivers.

Thank You to Our 2024 Pinwheel Sponsors!

PFCC.Connect 

Emory Healthcare

Providence Health Care

University Health

Health System 

Vanderbilt University Medical Center

Hospital/Organization

Akron Children’s Hospital

Alliant Health Solutions

American College of Radiology

Children’s Mercy Kansas City

Children’s Minnesota

Children’s Specialized Hospital

IWK Health Centre

Luminis Health Anne Arundel Medical Center

MHA Keystone Center

Moffitt Cancer Center

Nationwide Children’s Hospital

Penn State Health Milton S. Hershey Medical Center

St. Louis Children’s Hospital

Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Centre

University of Iowa Stead Family Children's Hospital

University of Miami Health System

University of New Mexico Children's Hospital

Wellstar MCG (formerly Augusta Health)

Learn more about our Pinwheel Sponsor Program or contact Sherry Hajec, shajec@ipfcc.org.