The Patient and Family Advisory Council (PFAC) Roadmap to Success was created to help hospitals authentically engage patients and families as valued care partners, as well as to ensure that patients and families are at the center of care decisions and care is individualized to address the specific needs of patients. This resource helps hospitals address concerns around the potential for compromised confidentiality and assists in identifying patient and family advisors (PFAs) who are engaged to create positive change.
The Roadmap provides hospitals with step-by-step guidance on implementing and sustaining a successful PFAC. It contains specific strategies to implement and links to tools and resources for each step of a hospital’s PFAC journey. These steps include:
- Assessing leadership engagement and organizational readiness
- Creating an internal team to design and launch the PFAC
- Recruiting and selecting PFAC members
- Onboarding and orienting PFAC members
- Initiating and implementing PFAC projects
- Measuring PFAC impact and sustainability
The Health Services Advisory Group Hospital Quality Improvement Contractor (HSAG HQIC) hospitals and health systems with successful PFACs were consulted to obtain their input on the steps and processes outlined in the roadmap. HSAG HQIC also interviewed the leadership of HSAG’s internal PFAC about the processes they used to set up and launch a successful PFAC. HSAG HQIC quality advisors also collaborated with established PFAs. The HSAG HQIC team uses the PFAC Roadmap to Success as part of its patient and family engagement (PFE) coaching strategy with hospitals. This coaching has led to an increase in the number of hospitals in compliance with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) PFE metrics. Many hospitals paused their PFE efforts during the COVID-19 pandemic and are now re-establishing their PFACs. This roadmap assists hospitals in this endeavor, with the goal of continually increasing the number of hospitals in compliance with PFE 5.
HQIC quality advisors are invited to share this roadmap with HQIC hospitals, use this roadmap to provide individual technical assistance and coaching, and support topic-specific peer group calls.
HQIC hospitals have provided feedback that the PFAC Roadmap to Success is useful, and supports a gap analysis for existing PFAC processes and is foundational for developing a new PFAC.