Patient-Family Partner Program Aligns Patient Engagement With Improvement Work

SEATTLE, May 25, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- In an effort to help health care organizations worldwide better capture the patient voice, and sustain improvement work around patient satisfaction, Virginia Mason Institute is now offering the Patient-Family Partner Program to clients worldwide.

The services, which include extensive coaching from Virginia Mason Institute's executive sensei, customized training materials, and on-site program facilitation, aim to optimally prepare any health care organization to embed and engage patients, their families, and community members as partners in quality improvement work. The patient is empowered to give real-life feedback regarding their care while at the same time learning about the complexities of health care and benefiting future patients.

The Patient-Family Partner Program is a product of Virginia Mason's own highly successful and impactful program that resulted in numerous value-added improvement products and provides a continuous value stream today. Since its inception in 2007 the program has grown to 200 engaged patient-family partners who bring diverse backgrounds and skill sets. Interestingly, since that time, professional liabilities claims saw a 74 percent reduction, resulting in considerable cost savings; just a taste of the measurable impacts on patient safety and patient satisfaction a Patient-Family Partner Program has.

Incorporating the patient as an influential voice in health care decision making has been proven to yield enormous benefits to hospitals and clinics, as well as measurable cost savings, by greatly reducing time waste for both the patient and provider, helping to prevent hospital readmissions, increasing patient satisfaction scores, improving patient outcomes, and eliminating duplicative processes.

Patient-Family Partner Program clients will be coached through developing a framework for embedding partner roles into existing structures, recruiting patient partners, preparing partners and stakeholders for the onboarding and matching process, and sustaining engagement for optimum retention. Materials, including a guide book and worksheets, will help facilitate the program development and implementation. Finally, coaching around testing and sustaining the new program will ensure continued long-term benefit.

About Virginia Mason Institute
At Virginia Mason Institute we believe that zero-defect health care is possible. We are committed, we are confident and we can transform health care. By creating and sustaining cultures of continuous improvement; through the delivery of training that inspires, prepares and guides; and in helping organizations solve their urgent and persisting problems, we can transform health care. It is possible. Together we will relentlessly pursue the improvement of patient safety, patient experience and the quality, cost, and delivery of health care.

Elizabeth Kimball
Public and Media Relations
Virginia Mason Institute
elizabeth.kimball@virginiamason.org

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