"A daughter’s frustration with the dearth of patient- and family-center" by Cindy Brach

"A daughter’s frustration with the dearth of patient- and family-center" by Cindy Brach

Article reports on lack of patient- and family-centered care

Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) sent this bulletin at 05/07/2014 01:44 PM EDT

Personal Narrative Prescribes System Change

AHRQ researcher Cindy Brach’s article, "A daughter’s frustration with the dearth of patient- and family-centered care," was published in the inaugural issue of the Patient Experience Journal.

This first person account of a hospitalization describes the lack of patient and family inclusion in decision-making, failure to use plain language and other health literacy strategies, and disregard for patient and family preferences. Brach concludes that if the health care system is going to shift from paternalistic to patient- and family-centered, providers must be trained how to communicate and partner with patients and families and health care organizations must foster and support such care.

The article is available at: http://pxjournal.org/journal/vol1/iss1/7.

You can access AHRQ tools referenced by Brach by clicking the below links.

• The Guide to Patient and Family Engagement in Hospital Quality and Safety  focuses on four strategies for promoting patient/family engagement in hospital safety and quality of care.
• The Health Literacy Universal Precautions Toolkit describes 20 discrete tools to implement health literacy strategies.
• The Re-Engineered Discharge (RED) Toolkit provides implementation guidance to hospitals interested in using health literacy strategies to prepare patients better for discharge and reduce avoidable rehospitalizations.
• Strategies to improve communication between pharmacy staff and patients: training program for pharmacy staff is a training program designed to introduce pharmacists to strategies for communicating with patients who may have limited health literacy.