New Book for Leaders in Healthcare Focuses on Patients as Partners in Their Own Care

CHICAGO, June 8, 2006 - Martin J. Hatlie, JD, president, Partnership for Patient Safety (p4ps) wrote the foreword to a new book entitled, “Patients as Partners: How to Involve Patients and Families in Their Own Care.” Written and published by Joint Commission Resources, Inc., the book takes a close look at the best models of patient-centered care so far developed in the United States.

“In the United States we are just at the beginning of moving from the rhetoric of patient partnership to implementation,” said Hatlie. “For those looking for best existing practices, Patients as Partners: How to Involve Patients and Families in Their Own Care is a very valuable tool.”

Patients as Partners teaches healthcare workers and organizational leaders how to create a culture of safety that accepts patients and families as part of the healthcare team, as well as how to:

• Open the lines of communication between them and their patients, caregivers or families;
• Create patient/family education programs that teach patients how to be involved and how to recognize errors pertaining to medication, hand hygiene, wrong-site surgery, correct patient identification, and more;
• Evaluate each patient’s level of health literacy regardless of what language they speak or their reading level; and
• Address the education and involvement needs for special patient populations, such as pediatric, geriatric, chronic and limited English-speaking patients.

This publication also compiles many examples of what other organizations are doing to achieve, facilitate or promote patient and family involvement in their own organization.

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About Partnership for Patient Safety

Partnership for Patient Safety (p4ps) is a patient-centered initiative to advance the reliability of healthcare systems worldwide. The mission of p4ps is to initiate focused partnerships and joint ventures with organizations and individuals that share its core values and objectives of achieving a healthcare system that is authentically patient-centered and systems-based.

Contact:

Martin J. Hatlie, JD, President
Partnership for Patient Safety
(312) 274-9695
mhatlie@p4ps.org

About the Joint Commission Resources

Joint Commission Resources, Inc. (JCR) is a global, knowledge-based organization which disseminates information regarding accreditation, standards development and compliance, good practices, and health care quality improvement. Joint Commission Resources is dedicated to helping health care organizations world-wide to improve the quality of patient care and achieve peak performance.