Ambassadors push family-centered care
Just three years after Blank Children’s Hospital’s executive director of pediatrics and child life specialist attended a 1997 seminar sponsored by the Institute for Family-centered Care, the Des Moines, IA, hospital has several related initiatives under way.
In 1997, a committee formed to work on family-centered care issues developed a two-hour educational session that introduces
the basic concepts and allows attendees to explore the value of family-centered care. Hospital administration accepted the committee’s proposal to use this session to train all staff, putting into motion the hospital’s Family-Centered Care Ambassador Program.
The sessions combine presentations, interactive discussions, training activities, and a video and are jointly led by a staff member and the parent of a patient. The video, "Through the Eyes of Our Parents," shows several parents discussing the challenges they faced and the positive experiences they had when their children were hospitalized. At each educational session, a parent featured in the video leads a discussion about its content.
A portion of each two-hour session is devoted to promoting real change within the organization. Participants discuss the potential for change and ideas for establishing family-centered practices and policies. Staff who are interested in leading those efforts in their own units are invited to become "ambassadors" and are asked to participate in follow-up meetings with the session facilitators.
The first step to facilitate an individual unit’s efforts typically is completion of a general self-assessment. Through this evaluation, appropriate goals and activities are selected. Ambassadors from the various units come together quarterly to share progress and receive feedback from their peers.
[More information on Blank Children’s Hospital, family-centered care and self-assessment tools is available at the Institute for Family-centered Care Web site: www.familycenteredcare.org. The Institute’s address is 7900 Wisconsin Ave., Suite 405, Bethesda, MD. Telephone: (301) 652-0281.]
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