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CE spotlight: Patient advisory boards engage patients in their own care*

Nurse Manager Weekly, October 26, 2009

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In today's culture, many hospitals are increasing their focus on patient-centered care—involving patients in their own care decisions to improve outcomes. One route facilities often choose is creating a patient advisory board or committee.

Kathryn Leonhardt, MD, MPH, patient safety officer and medical director of care management was part of a team at Aurora Health Care in Milwaukee that received a grant from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) to create a patient advisory committee toolkit. The grant, which ran from 2005 through 2007, allowed Leonhardt to study best practices for forming and maintaining a functioning patient advisory council and measure outcomes.

The toolkit, Guide for Developing a Community-Based Patient Safety Advisory Council, came from one of 17 grants in AHRQ's Partners Implementing Patient Safety (PIPS) grant series. The series broadened the scope of the AHRQ's grants at the time, which were mostly focused on developing new health services research. In 2005, however, as information started to come in from earlier grants, the AHRQ decided to broaden the scope of its grants and focus on existing interventions to see whether those could be shared with other hospitals across the country.

Editor’s note: To read the rest of this article, visit “Patient advisory boards engage patients in their own care*”  found in the Reading Room at www.StrategiesForNurseManagers.com. Did you know members of StrategiesforNurseManagers.com can receive free CE credits for this article and many other articles (marked with an asterisk) with membership? Just login or subscribe today.

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