Creating and Enhancing Patient and Family Resource Centers

This practical guide for developing patient and family resource centers addresses a range of issues, including planning, scope of services, selecting and organizing materials, staffing, use of technology, and evaluation. The importance of collaboration with patients, families, and communities is emphasized. It includes sample documents, marketing tools, budgets, fundraising strategies, and policies and procedures.

Item No. 32086, Price: $ 50

12 Copies - Item No. 32186, Price: $550

Creating and Enhancing Patient and Family Resource Centers
Table of Contents

Introduction
Describes factors encouraging the development of patient and family resource centers and details potential benefits of these centers.

Creating a Patient and Family Resource Center: Key Considerations
Provides an overview of the issues to consider for planning, ongoing operations, and evaluation of a family resource center. Includes specific mention of involving patients and families throughout the process.

Developing and Refining the Vision, Mission, and Core Values
Discusses the importance of, and the process for, articulating the purpose, philosophy, and key directions for a resource center.

Collaborating with Patients and Families
Describes roles for patients and family members and strategies to support them as active participants in all aspects of planning, operations, and evaluation processes.

Building Relationships within the Institution and with Community Organizations
Discusses the advantages of building a network of advisors to the resource center. Details the importance of partnering with the medical library, the volunteer services department, the hospital information systems department, and other institutional departments, as well as with community organizations.

Scope of Activities
Describes a variety of resource center services and programs, from basic services to special and advanced programming.

Obtaining Funding and Creating a Budget
Discusses creative strategies for funding a resource center, including start-up costs, maintenance costs, and the support of special projects. Presents ideas for developing a budget for the center.

Staffing the Patient and Family Resource Center
Describes a variety of staffing patterns for patient and family resource centers. Provides guidance on certain basic considerations to bear in mind when creating a position description and selecting the director/coordinator of the center.

Selecting and Supporting Volunteers
Identifies key issues to consider when developing and maintaining a successful volunteer program for a resource center.

Creating a Supportive, Welcoming Environment
Discusses three fundamental issues: location of the center within the hospital or clinic; size and layout of space; and furnishings and equipment.

Selecting and Organizing Materials
Offers suggestions for developing a resource collection, including how to select and order materials. Discusses considerations pertinent to classification and cataloguing of materials. Addresses updating the collection.

Technology in the Resource Center
Identifies benefits of incorporating electronic learning technologies in any center. Includes sections on hardware and software acquisition and tips for ensuring successful Internet usage by patients and families.

Circulation of Resource Center Materials
Suggests key considerations for successful collection management, including examples of varied circulation policies.

Outreach and Marketing
Discusses approaches for outreach both to patients and their families in the institution and to community members. Includes ideas for marketing a patient and family resource center.

Policies and Procedures
Identifies important considerations for developing center policies and procedures, and includes sample policy statements.

Evaluation
Describes a variety of options and strategies for evaluating both services and outcomes of a patient and family resource center.

Appendices

Survey on Proposed Family Resource Center for the Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario.
Mission Statement Samples.
Overview of the Reference Interview Process.
Volunteers: Sample Tasks, Sample Job Description, Orientation Checklist, and Opening and Closing Procedures for Volunteers.
Donations: Sample Guidelines and Policy.
Recommended Resources Regarding Aging.
Technology Glossary.
Consumer Health Internet Resources.
Forums for Resource Centers.
Highlights from the Literature.
Resource Center and Hospital Index.
Selected Resources from the Institute for Family-Centered Care.

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