The PFACs throughout the Johns Hopkins Health System join together monthly to share information on how to best represent the patient and family voice in their respective institutions. This consortium is known as the Patient- and Family-Centered Care Clinical Community (PFCC-CC). Suburban is privileged to have one of its PFAs, Vicki Stearn, serving as the co-chair of the Clinical Community along with Johns Hopkins Hospital and Health System staff member, Nicole Iarrobino. Suburban’s PFAC is also represented on the PFCC-CC by three PFAs, as well as Suburban’s Director of the Office of Patient Family Experience Kris Hakanson.
The PFCC-CC took on special significance this summer when its members urged Johns Hopkins Medicine leadership to consider loosening the restrictions placed on family presence due to the pandemic so non-COVID-19 patients could again have care partners in the hospitals. Prior to the pandemic, care partners were welcome to accompany patients and be at their bedside during their hospital stays with very few exceptions.
In July, the PFCC-CC, including representatives from Suburban’s PFAC, wrote a carefully considered letter to Johns Hopkins Medicine leaders noting the severity of the pandemic had lessened considerably and the multiple adverse impacts on patients, families, and staff of the forced separation on patients from their care partners. In a very quick response to that letter, Kevin Sowers, President of the Johns Hopkins Health System and Executive Vice President of Johns Hopkins Medicine, convened a remote meeting with the PFCC-CC, Executive Leadership, and others to discuss the issue in more detail. Following that well-attended Zoom meeting, the Hopkins system implemented a very thoughtful and flexible plan to allow care partners back in the hospitals to be with non-COVID-19 patients. This policy includes the flexibility to change the degree of family presence welcomed in each hospital depending on the real-time severity of the COVID-19 pandemic in that hospital’s community. This process and result exemplified the wonderful working relationship between the PFACs and the Johns Hopkins Health System.
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