Swedish Issaquah is looking for patient and family advisors to be part of the Swedish Issaquah Patient Family Advisory Council.
What is a patient and family advisor?
A patient and family advisor volunteers to give insight and input to help improve the experience of care for all patients and family members at Swedish. Patient and family advisors provide a voice that helps us offer patient-centered services and care that is based on needs identified by families and patients. At Swedish, we embrace the diversity and multiculturalism our caregivers, patients and their families bring. We believe that patients and family advisors participation will help improve the quality and safety of care we provide and also improve our cultural responsiveness and cultural competency. Advisors partner with clinic and hospital doctors, nurses, staff and administrators to help improve the quality of our patient’s experience for everyone.
Who can be a patient and family advisor?
Any patient or family member of a patient who is currently receiving or recently received care at Swedish within the last 5 years may be a patient and family advisor. You do not need any special qualifications to be an advisor. What is most important is your experience as a patient or family member. We will provide you with any other training you need.
What do patient and family advisors do?
If you are an advisor for our clinics or hospital, you can help us in the following ways:
- Share your story. Advisers help by talking about their health care experiences with clinicians, staff and other patients.
- Participate in discussion groups and board meetings. Advisors tell us what it’s like to be a patient at our clinics/hospitals and what we can do to improve.
- Review or help create educational or informational materials. Advisors help review and create materials like forms, health information handouts and discharge instructions. Advisors help us make these materials easier for all patients and family members to understand and use.
- Work on short-term projects. We sometimes ask advisors to partner with us in making improvements — for example, helping to plan and design a family resource room.
- Serve on a Patient and Family Advisory Council. An advisory council discusses and plans changes to improve hospital quality and safety. Members include patients, family members and clinic/hospital staff.
For more information or to apply, visit www.swedish.org/pfac or contact our Patient Family Advisory Council coordinator at 206-386-2740 or via email at pfac@swedish.org