Hospital Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Efforts: Perspectives of Patient and Family Advisors.

Background And Objectives: Patient and family advisory councils are common within children's hospitals. However, lack of diversity among patient and family advisors (PFAs) may result in exclusion of crucial perspectives and perpetuate inequities. We sought to understand PFA perspectives on how children's hospitals should approach: (1) recruitment and support of PFAs from groups at greater risk of health inequities; and (2) development of meaningful partnerships with PFAs or patient and family advisory councils on institutional diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) efforts.

Bioethics for Neonatal Cardiac Care.

Background: Clinicians caring for neonates with congenital heart disease encounter challenges with ethical implications in daily practice and must have some basic fluency in ethical principles and practical applications.

Methods: Good ethical practice begins with a thorough understanding of the details and narrative of each individual case, examination via classic principles of bioethics, and further framing of that translation into practice.

Results: We explore some of these issues and expand awareness through the lens of a case presentation beginning with fetal considerations through end-of-life discussions.

"Supporting Wellness": A depression and bipolar support alliance mixed-methods investigation of lived experience perspectives and priorities for mood disorder treatment.

Background: The lived experience of people with mood disorders may be leveraged to inform priorities for research, define key treatment outcomes, and support decision-making in clinical care. The aim of this mixed-methods project was to provide insight into how people with depression and bipolar disorder experience the impact of symptoms, their treatment preferences, and their definitions of wellness.

Methods: The project was implemented in two phases.

Function of the Medical Team Quarterback: Patient, Family, and Physician Perspectives on Team Care Coordination in Patient- and Family-Centered Primary Care.

Context: Patient- and family-centered care (PFCC) literature is growing, but few reports present patient, caregiver, and practitioner perspectives about care coordination in a team-based model.

Objective: To understand the patient's, caregiver's, and physician's ideal forms of PFCC, we investigated the function of the medical team quarterback, who coordinates and advocates for appropriate care, and probed to understand how the quarterback works with a team to contribute to ideal PFCC.

Design And Main Outcome Measures: Nine focus groups with 92 participants were held in 3 major cities.

Actions and processes that patients, family members, and physicians associate with patient- and family-centered care.

Background: Patient- and family-centered care (PFCC) is increasingly linked to improved communication, care quality, and patient decision making. However, in order to consistently implement and study PFCC, health care systems and researchers need a solid evidentiary base. Most current definitions and models of PFCC are broad and conceptual, and difficult to translate into measurable behaviors and actions.

Promoting Patient and Family Partnerships in Ambulatory Care Improvement: A Narrative Review and Focus Group Findings.

Introduction: Ambulatory practices that actively partner with patients and families in quality improvement (QI) report benefits such as better patient/family interactions with physicians and staff, and patient empowerment. However, creating effective patient/family partnerships for ambulatory care improvement is not yet routine. The objective of this paper is to provide practices with concrete evidence about meaningfully involving patients and families in QI activities.

A Narrative Review of Patient and Family Engagement: The "Foundation" of the Medical "Home".

Background: Patient and family engagement (PFE) is vital to the spirit of the medical home. This article reflects the efforts of an expert consensus panel, the Patient and Family Engagement Workgroup, as part of the Society of General Internal Medicine's 2013 Research Conference.

Objective: To review extant literature on PFE in pediatric and adult medicine and quality improvement, highlight emerging best practices and models, suggest questions for future research, and provide references to tools and resources to facilitate implementation of PFE strategies.

Promoting Patient- and Family-Centered Care Through Personal Stories.

Patient- and family-centered care is an approach to the planning, delivery, and evaluation of health care that is grounded in mutually beneficial partnerships among patients, their families, and health care professionals. It redefines the relationships in health care by placing an emphasis on collaborating with patients of all ages, and their families, at all levels of care, in all health care settings, and in organizational change and improvement. This collaboration ensures that health care is responsive to an individual's priorities, preferences, and values.

Guidelines for Creating, Implementing, and Evaluating Mind-Body Programs in a Military Healthcare Setting.

Research suggests that the development of mind-body skills can improve individual and family resilience, particularly related to the stresses of illness, trauma, and caregiving. To operationalize the research evidence that mind-body skills help with health and recovery, Samueli Institute, in partnership with experts in mind-body programming, created a set of guidelines for developing and evaluating mind-body programs for service members, veterans, and their families. The Guidelines for Creating, Implementing, and Evaluating Mind-Body Programs in a Military Healthcare Setting outline key strategies and issues to consider when developing, implementing, and evaluating a mind-body focused family empowerment approach in a military healthcare setting.