What is a Patient Family Advisory Council

Intro: MemorialCare Health System, Excellence in Healthcare presents Weekly Dose of Wellness. Here's your host, Deborah Howell.

Deborah Howell (Host): Hi, and welcome to the show. I am Deborah Howell and today our guest is Monica Maldonado-Puertas. She is Director of Patient Relations and Safety for MemorialCare Medical Group. Monica is responsible for enhancing patients and families' experience through the development of educational and incentive programs for staff and physicians. Welcome to you, Monica.

Monica Maldonado-Puertas: Thank you so much for having me.

Deborah Howell (Host): It's great to have you on the program. Can you please tell us in your own words what is a patient family advisory council?

Monica Maldonado-Puertas: Oh, certainly. A Patient Advisory Council is a group of folks that review different specific issues within the organization. And the group is composed of patients, our current patients or family members of current patients as well as staff. And the hope is that we can get together and really get some terrific feedback from our patients from their perspective, their point of view of what we are doing. So if we're planning to redesign an office, for example, the hope is that as we show them that information, they can really tell us are we going in the right direction. So it's really worth us listening very carefully to the voice of the patient and it gives us a really great perspective.

Deborah Howell (Host): This is kind of groundbreaking thinking, isn't it?

Monica Maldonado-Puertas: It is, it is. The hospitals have been doing this for a little bit. But as a medical group I understand we're among the first to do this. So we're very excited. We're thrilled to be able to pull our patients in and give them a really good view of what happens sort of in the background of the medical group and see if we're going in the right direction, if that's really what they want as a patient.

Deborah Howell (Host): You know, as a future patient I'm pretty excited about it too, 'cause so many times you're lying in that bed and you just feel like you have no control, no say. You know, so this is a wonderful development. So generally who are the members of the council?

Monica Maldonado-Puertas: Members of the council all will be patients. We look at really getting a diverse group of folks coming on board. So we'd like for them to have obviously some experience coming to see our physicians, whether it's a mom bringing in her munchkins or a daughter bringing in a mother or a father. So really some diversity in that sense so that they really are telling us this is the experience we've had in your facilities, this is the experience based on the patient that I have brought in or myself as a patient.

Deborah Howell (Host): Mm-hmm. I'm so impressed that when I asked this question about who's in the council, the very first thing you said was the patients. I mean that's such a - I can't tell you how heartwarming that is.

Monica Maldonado-Puertas: Well, yes, you know, we are only here because of the patients, so we have to really focus on being patient centered and what best way to do that, but to certainly get that feedback from our patients.

Deborah Howell (Host): Right. Now we touched on this a little bit already, but how does having a patient family advisory council benefit the patient?

Monica Maldonado-Puertas: Well, I think it gives them the ability, um well let me back up. I think it's twofold. It gives the patient certainly the ability to voice their opinion and really share with us what their perspective is of how we do business. And also I think it gives them some information about how we do business so that they can ask the right questions when they come to a doctor's office and visit their physician. So it really gives them that perspective so that they can ask how, why we do this and really is this beneficial.

Deborah Howell (Host): Right. Now, does the council make decision on policies or programs?

Monica Maldonado-Puertas: The council really looks at giving us advice, because we need to have our execs be able to really look and see if we can make some changes and you know, we look at certainly how that change will affect how we do that process. We look at cost obviously, but we really have that patient there to give us their full feedback and their advice on what they think would work best for them, what they think would be a perfect world for the patient. And so we really then take that information and have those folks take a look at it and see how we can put it into play.

Deborah Howell (Host): Do you feel you learn things from the patients?

Monica Maldonado-Puertas: Absolutely. We just had a meeting this last week and we asked our patients, you know, what would be the perfect world when you call in to make an appointment for the same day. What really needs to happen. And they shared an abundance of information of what they thought would work best. And so we can take that information back to our physicians and say, this is what the patient want?. How can we make this happen? So it's absolutely a learning from our end.

Deborah Howell (Host): I just love this whole concept. So how does a patient or family member get to be on the council and what is the term of service?

Monica Maldonado-Puertas: The patient can apply. We have all the application and general information about the council on our website. So they can certainly apply. They can ask any physician what the council is about and if they are interested how they get a hold of us. All that information is as I said on the website. The term we ask is two years. Our hope is that it gives them really enough time to feel comfortable with us and really be able to give us some great feedback.

Deborah Howell (Host): Okay. And how long has MemorialCare Medical Group had a patient family advisory council?

Monica Maldonado-Puertas: We are brand new at this. We started last year. Yeah, we started last year. We started with two council members. And this is our second year and we have grown. We now have six council members.

Deborah Howell (Host): Congratulations.

Monica Maldonado-Puertas: Thank you so much. We're very excited. We have a great group of folks who are just wonderful and are really willing to be here and share their experiences in an effort to really help us get this done much better.

Deborah Howell (Host): It's a win win win win win.

Monica Maldonado-Puertas: Absolutely. Absolutely.

Deborah Howell (Host): Well, thank you so much, Monica. You've really enlightened me and I feel very excited about being a patient in the future. It's been great to have you on the program today.

Monica Maldonado-Puertas: Thank you so much for having me.

Deborah Howell (Host): Really so informative, right? So to listen to the podcast or for more info, please visit memorialcare.org. That's memorialcare.org. It certainly is a great day to be a patient. I'm Deborah Howell. Join us again next time as we explore another Weekly Dose of Wellness brought to you by MemorialCare Health System. Have a fantastic day.