Guide to Patient and Family Engagement in Health Care Quality and Safety in the Hospital Setting: Development, Implementation and Evaluation

In 2009, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) awarded a contract to American Institutes for Research (AIR) to lead a team of organizations in the development, implementation, and evaluation of a Guide to Patient and Family Engagement (the Guide).

HRET in collaboration with AIR is working to support consumer engagement by leading a project that promotes patient and family engagement in hospital safety and quality. The role of patients and their families is an often-overlooked avenue of improving safety and quality. By better connecting with the patient experience, hospitals can proactively anticipate actions necessary to improving the safety and quality of care provided to patients.

The Guide reflects a critical step toward safer, higher quality care in the United States by encouraging and facilitating patient and family engagement to improve health care experiences, care delivery, and outcomes. The Guide will include interventions and materials to encourage patient and family engagement during the hospital stay and to help patients and family members become advisors at the organizational level, along with implementation guidance for hospital leaders and staff. The team will conduct formative testing of the Guide prior to implementing and evaluating the Guide interventions and materials in several diverse hospital settings. The mixed-methods evaluation will focus on how the Guide affects key outcomes, including patient and family engagement, staff satisfaction, and organizational culture. The final phase of the project involves strategic outreach and dissemination of the Guide.

For more information on this project, contact Debbie Pierce, at (312) 422-2635 or dpierce@aha.org.