“Recruiting patients and families for hospital Patient Safety Committees is essential to keeping our work truly patient centered,” says Susan P. Lawson, Baystate Medical Center Patient and Family Advisory Council member, in this guest blog post.
Recruiting patients and families for hospital Patient Safety Committees is essential to keeping our work truly patient centered. But still, recruiting lay people for this critical work may seem daunting and downright scary! Think of it: airing dirty laundry in front of patients?
At Baystate Medical Center in Springfield, Massachusetts, two patients have full membership on the Patient Safety Committee. The process used to recruit and train them could be a model for others. Baystate established its Patient and Family Advisory Council (PFAC) in 2010. As early discussions centered on patient safety issues, the Patient Safety Committee focused on how to begin a conversation with patients about helping to prevent harm. The committee asked that a “safety champion” attend a PFAC meeting and this dialogue resulted in two patients joining the Safety Committee in 2012 — and I am delighted to be one of those advisors.
Orientation was essential for a smooth transition and effective collaboration. Both the Safety Committee and the patient advisors needed preparation for this partnership to be productive. The chair of the Patient Safety Committee facilitated discussions that helped the members recognize the value of patient and family contributions. Committee members became willing to forgo assumptions in lieu of hearing directly from patients and their families.
Watch a brief video about simple ways to improve patient care In addition, the chair of the Safety Committee met with the two patient advisors prior to our first committee meeting. We reviewed the time commitment and expectations. We addressed definitions, language, and tools used by the Safety Committee and familiarized ourselves with current topics of discussion. Most importantly, assigned “mentors” paired up with the patient advisors to clarify issues and answer questions as they came up during committee meetings.
Our work has evolved. A third patient advisor now serves on an ad hoc patient falls committee and others have served on root cause analysis teams.
As one of those first two patient advocate recruits, I feel that this partnership has worked beautifully and productively. Of course I hope my input has been helpful to the organization, but I do know my experience has been beneficial to me personally. I have become a better consumer of health care and a better patient.
On December 2, 2014, I participated in a panel discussion to help celebrate the re-launch of the Betsy Lehman Center for Patient Safety and Medical Error Reduction in Boston. To prepare, I asked the Baystate Medical Center Patient Safety Committee if having patients on the committee had changed the way they conduct their meetings. One committee member said, “Well, yes! Not in our discussions. I mean, we don’t filter our comments just because you are here, but we do look to your input to guide our decisions and remind us that our work impacts our patients.”
I guess that says it all!
