Collaborative patient and family engagement is a strategy to build a patient and family centered health care system. In a patient and family centered health system, patients and families are encouraged and supported as essential members of the health care team and there are meaningful opportunities for them to serve as advisors and partners in quality improvement efforts, patient safety initiatives and health care design.
Since 2012, the Foundation for Healthy Communities has supported and advocated for the inclusion of Patients and Families in designing, implementing, and evaluating initiatives, programs, and processes across the continuum of health care. Through the years we have developed and compiled several resources to help all healthcare organizations and those resources are made available to assist in developing or enhancing a patient and family engagement program.
Patient Family Engagement (PFE) should not be a separate or stand-alone initiative. It is a series of strategies to achieve current quality, safety, and experience goals within the organization. The first step is to determine the goals for your PFE program -determining the goals will make choosing strategies easier and the overall program more effective.
Most of the resources listed on this site are supported by the Foundation for Healthy Communities and are available, free of charge, to New Hampshire health care organizations.
