How to effectively engage patients and families in quality improvement: a deep, transparent partnership (10 August 2021)

Summary

Increasingly, healthcare organisations are using the unique perspective of patients and families to drive organisational change. As recipients of care, patients and families are well-positioned to add immense value as equal partners in efforts to advance healthcare quality. However, what is important is not just the engagement of patients in quality improvement, but how one engages them. Even with the best intentions, it is the ‘how’ that can be most challenging, as most recommendations end at high-level concepts, leaving quality improvement teams wondering how to most effectively engage their patients and families in a tangible and concrete way.

A multidisciplinary team at a large health system undertook a quality improvement initiative utilising the ‘Plan-DoStudy-Act’ methodology for continuous quality improvement.