Through a Patient and Family Advisory Council, Baptist Health South Florida is putting patients to work—and giving them a direct line of communication to the organization’s leadership.

Baptist Health South Florida is the region’s largest nonprofit, faith-based health system with six hospitals and a number of outpatient centers. More than 2,000 physicians and close to 14,000 employees staff the facilities, yet the organization has recently been recruiting a different kind of help: patients. Through the creation of a Patient and Family Advisory Council, Baptist Health is giving their patients a direct line to the system’s leadership.

“We have a fairly extensive structure for patient and family involvement,” says Yvonne Zawodny, RN, LHRM, CPHRM, assistant vice president for risk management and patient safety at Baptist Health. “We wanted to be sure that what [our patients] were saying got to the board.”

Members of Baptist Health South’s Patient and Family Advisory Council

Patient and family advisory councils are a growing trend in health care. Research shows that patients who have positive experiences with the health care system are more likely to comply with their treatment plans and have better health outcomes than those who have negative experiences. Most hospitals conduct patient surveys, but according to the U.S. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, the best way to institute improvements is to involve patients directly in the design and evaluation of systems that affect them.

At Baptist Health, the process began with the Quality and Safety Steering Council, a group made up of doctors, nurses, and other staff who oversee system-wide initiatives. The Steering Council chartered the creation of a system-wide Patient and Family Advisory Council (PFAC), which first met in April 2010. Two PFAC members serve as charter members of the Steering Council, which reports to a committee of the board of directors.

In the coming year, the structure will become even more robust as the organization fulfills its plan to have a distinct Patient & Family Advisory Council at each of its six hospitals.

Geri Schimmel, RN, MS, LHRM, director of Patient Safety Partnership at Baptist Health, says the patient and family members are vocal and active. One of their most important contributions to date has been helping to revise the system-wide Patient Safety Guide. “Their perspectives were really different from our clinical perspective,” Schimmel said. “We made significant changes as a result.”

Sandra Sosa, mother of a child who suffered an injury while undergoing care, was recruited by the organization to serve on the Steering Council and help organize the PFAC. “You’ve got to be open,” she says. “It’s a lot of hard work. We bring a different perspective as family members, so sometimes, for the clinical staff, it’s a culture shift to do things differently.”

But, she adds, “The rewarding part is to see our work come to be.”