Mission, Vision, and Guiding Principles

The Emergency Department Patient and Family Advisory Council’s (PFAC) mission is to improve the Stanford Health Care experience and emphasize patient-centered care across all areas of daily work inside the Stanford Hospital Emergency Department.

In collaboration with Emergency Department (ED) leadership, the PFAC leverages patient-caregiver feedback and provides experience and insight to integrate the patient, family, and caregiver voice into organization-wide programs.  

Accomplishments

• The primary focus of Emergency Department PFAC was to provide ongoing feedback and brainstorm ideas for improvements in the MyHealth application.  The PFAC worked with Digital Health on the following initiatives:
  • Assisted in developing content to explain Emergency Department operations and services. This information was previously communicated through a slide deck projected on a waiting area monitor.
  • Developed signage for the waiting area to help users who had trouble signing in to MyHealth
  • Improved access for patients to get after visit notes (as required by the CURES Act)
  • Added the Patient Behavioral Agreement to MyHealth
• Provided feedback to programs designed to help medical residents develop skills in patient-centered care
  • Advancing Communication Excellence at Stanford
  • Online course for emergency residents and faculty focused on patient-centered care.  
• Partnering with the Digital Health Strategy team, provided feedback and suggestions that would encourage patients to use digital medicine tools like the telemedicine application introduced in the Emergency Department in February 2021. 
• Working with Ambulatory, provided suggestions and feedback on an initiative designed to send messages to patients encouraging them to take advantage of the annual wellness checkup. 
• Met several times to discuss the Emergency Department’s ongoing development of a geriatric program. Currently, over 50% of emergency room patients are over 65.
• Optimized the Emergency Department’s Precision Medicine Program by adding the patient perspective.
• Added two new members.