Patient and family advisory councils (PFAC) feedback as the voice of health care consumers

Abstract

Background: Throughout the U.S., healthcare organizations continuously find ways to incorporate patient feedback with efforts to advance the delivery of patient-centered care. Patient and family advisory councils (PFACs) can be used as a strategy to better understand and honor the patient experience and improve care delivery thanks to patient input to obtain patient perspectives. The importance of formal efforts to incorporate the patient perspective is highlighted by the Comprehensive Primary Care Plus (CPC+) program implemented by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services which requires organizations to establish PFACs to receive funding. Site support for PFACs included a patient experience manager who oversaw recruitment and facilitated each clinic’s council meetings. Other support personnel consisted of the practice manager, physicians, care coordinators, and advanced practice providers. This study employed a leadership framework to better understand how health care organizations use PFACs to discover and define patient/family advisors perspectives and how they can be related to different styles of leadership continually evolving. This study surrounding the experiences of patient/family advisors and PFACs can be used for further research and to gain a better understanding of this topic. This research presented patient/ family advisors experiences, working together on patient family advisory councils with health care leaders, staff, providers, and managers, signaling the distinctive experiences of these participants which merits additional examination. There is further need for a meaningful discussion concerning the distinctive way doctors, providers and patients perceive the importance and meaning of medical encounters and patient and family engagement strategies.