Read here about the issues that are of broadest, most pressing concern to health care administrators, physicians and other providers, and patients and families who are working for patient- and family-centered change today.
Changing the Concept of Families as Visitors
Viewing families as allies for quality and safety and supporting their presence and participation in care and decision-making requires change in hospital and unit policies and education and support for staff.
Resources:
For those interested in examining staff practices and hospital infrastructure to determine how well family presence and participation is supported, please download the following resource: Are Families Considered Visitors in Our Hospital or Unit?
 |
Changing the Concept of Families as Visitors: Supporting Family Presence and Participation, a resource from the Institute for Family-Centered Care to assist units and institutions in redesigning "visiting" policies to support family member presence and participation. Please visit our Resources Page.
Don Berwick, the president of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement challenged hospitals to rethink restrictive visiting policies in intensive care units. Vicki Jensen Spuhler, RN, MS, CCRN, offers this systematic review of over 50 pieces of published literature of open visiting hours in intensive care units. Spuhler manages the Shock Trauma ICU and the Medical Surgical ICU at LDS Hospital in Salt Lake City, Utah. She is currently working with the Society of Critical Care Medicine on establishing guidelines for visitation in intensive care units. To download this paper, please visit the IHI website.
 |
When parents of NICU patients stay overnight, only 15 percent of hospitals indicate parents stay bedside in the unit. |
Children's Hospitals Today is a resource from the National Association of Children's Hospitals and Related Institutions (NACHRI). In their Winter 2005 Issue they featured an article entitled Family-centered Care in the NICU by Mitch Harris, Associate Director, Child Health and Financing, NACHRI and George Little, M.D., Professor of Pediatric Children's Hospital at Dartmouth, Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center.
Telephone interviews were conducted with NICU nurse managers at 61 institutions. Questions focused on two aspects of family-centered care: visitation policies for parents and other family members, and parent participation in unit activities.
This article is available online, Click Here.
HIPAA—Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act
 |
The Federal law, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), requires confidentiality of medical records and other individually identifiable health information. The Institute of Medicine (IOM) publication, Crossing the Quality Chasm: A New Health Care System for the 21st Century, states that health care must be patient-centered and sets forth several "rules to redesign and improve care," including "shared knowledge and the free flow of information." Can health providers comply with HIPAA while following the IOM recommendations? How can hospitals and health care organizations strike a balance between engaging patients and families in planning care and decision-making-which requires the sharing of information to assure safety and quality of care-while safeguarding patient confidentiality? The free download HIPPA-Providing New Opportunities for Collaboration addresses these questions and more.
HIPPA-Providing New Opportunities for Collaboration
This article is one of many included in the issue of Advances in Family-Centered Care linked below. The entire issue, Responding to HIPAA: Hospitals Confront New Challenges, Devise Creative Solutions, may be purchased from the Institute's website at:
Responding to HIPAA: Hospitals Confront New Challenges, Devise Creative Solutions