What is a Patient and Family Partner?

A patient and family partner is someone who:

• Wants to help improve quality, safety and the patient/family experience at all points of care – clinic, hospital, out-patient, home care, and nursing home.
• They partner with providers and staff to help improve the experience of care for our patients and family members.

Why Should You Become a Patient and Family Partner?

When you or your family member used our services, did you think there were things we could have done better? Do you have ideas about how to make sure other patients and families get the best care possible? At Perham Health, we feel your insights are valuable in helping to identify what really matters most to our patients in their healthcare experience.

What Do Patient and Family Partners Do?

We want to hear your story. Patient and family partners can help us in the following ways:

• Share your stories. Partners help by talking about their health care experiences with clinicians, staff, and other patients.
• Participate in discussion groups. Partners tell us what it’s like to be a patient at Perham Health, and what we can do to improve.
• Work on short-term projects. We sometimes ask patient and family partners to help us make improvements – for example, helping to choose signs for wayfinding.
• Serve on a patient and family advisory council. An advisory council discusses and plans changes to improve hospital and clinic quality and safety. Members include patients, family members, and staff.