SIDM Releases New PFAC Guides

Last month, the Society to Improve Diagnosis in Medicine (SIDM) released two new guides for hospitals and health systems to help in the reduction of harm from diagnostic errors. Each guide leverages the lived-experience, insights and expertise of Patient Family Advisory Councils (PFACs) to help drive change to improve diagnostic quality and safety. These new resources were unveiled during Boots on the Ground: How Patient and Family Advisors Are Turning Stories of Harm into Positive Change, a breakout session at the 2020 Institute for Patient- and Family-Centered Care’s international conference held virtually in August and September.

Each guide is targeted for a specific audience, with strategies for improving diagnosis in their institutions:

• Patient and Family Advisory Council Leader’s Guide for Diagnostic Quality and Safety is a compendium of best and promising practices for use by PFAC members and those interested in joining or forming a PFAC. While PFACs work on a variety of quality and safety issues, this guide is focused specifically on an often overlooked, but significant, challenge in health care: diagnostic errors.
• The Guide for Hospital and Health System Leaders for Diagnostic Quality and Safety focuses uniquely on preparing hospital and health system leaders to partner with patients, families, and PFACs to pursue diagnostic safety and quality improvement activities.

“The lived experience of patients and families is a tremendously rich source of data and learning,” said Suz Schrandt, JD, SIDM’s Senior Patient Engagement Advisor. “Given the growing ubiquity of PFACs, the question is not whether to work with PFACs to tackle diagnostic quality and safety, it is how to do it and how to do it most efficaciously.”

Both guides were developed based on insights and knowledge shared at a joint SIDM and National Academy of Medicine convening in December 2019 that included PFAC leadership made up of patient and family members impacted by diagnostic error. The recommendations also build on the Improving Diagnosis in Medicine Change Package developed by SIDM and the Health Research & Educational Trust’s Hospital Improvement Innovation Network.

“SIDM has developed a thoughtful pair of resources for leaders of health systems and for leaders of PFACs,” said Beverley H. Johnson, BSN, FAAN, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Institute for Patient- and Family-Centered Care. “The parallel format of these documents will facilitate collaboration between patient leaders and hospital and health systems executives, which is essential if we are to reduce diagnostic error.”

SIDM’s new guides were made possible with support from The Mont Fund.