Patient Family Partner Program

The Patient-Family Partner (PFP) program is an opportunity for Virginia Mason Francsican Health (VMFH) patients and caregivers to impact their healthcare by partnering with us in our process improvement efforts. By welcoming patients and their family and caregivers into our culture, we design services together.

Requirements:

Be a current patient of Virginia Mason Franciscan Health or a caregiver of a patient. Patient experience can include, but is not limited to, inpatient hospital stays, emergency department or urgent care visits, primary care visits, or speciality care/outpatient visits.
Be willing to share about positive and negative care experiences.
Commit to sharing respectfully about improvements and ideas.
Ability to commit to participating in a minimum of 1 Patient-Family Parter activity per quarter or four activities per year. PFP volunteers can choose which activities they participate in and there will be a variety of in-person or virtual activities offered each quarter. Activity commitments can range from 15 minutes to several days.

If you fit the above criteria, we would be happy to connect with you. Please complete our Patient-Family Partner Information form. Once completed, a PFP Program staff member will contact you about next steps.

Patient-Family Partner testimonials

Hear from some of our current Patient-Family Partners about why they participate in our program:

Common opportunities for Patient-Family Partner volunteers

Board/staff/committee meeting story:

Share your patient story/experience with our VMFH Board of Directors, at a relevant staff/department meeting or with a related VMFH or local site committee.

Committee member:

Serve as a member of a VMFH or local site committee. Usually a multi-year commitment with meetings ranging from once a month to twice a year.

Listening session:

Attend our monthly Patient-Family Partner Listening Sessions, where we learn about updates from throughout the organization and where PFPs are invited to share their recent patient experiences. Listening Sessions are held virtually.

Patient feedback panel:

Join a patient feedback panel during an event or meeting. PFPs usually participate virtually, via Zoom.

Patient feedback survey:

Share your opinions about a particular subject/department via a patient survey.

Peer partner:

Use your patient experiences to support other patients currently navigating their health care. This opportunity ranges from formal in person shifts in the hospital/clinic, to one time connections with patients.

Process Improvement Workshop:

Serve on a process improvement event team, including 1 to 3 day Kaizen events, and 5-Day Rapid Process Improvement Workshops (RPIW).

Review of materials:

Virtually review new patient education materials, clinic forms, staff resources, and more.

Special event/engagement:

Miscellaneous PFP opportunities, which could include attending a ribbon cutting event as a PFP representative, participating in a day long seminar hosted by Virginia Mason Franciscan Health, or other one time commitments.

Virginia Mason Production System (VMPS) report out:

Attend bi-weekly VMPS report out. Log on virtually to hear process improvement teams share about their recent events, the improvements made and how improvements are being implemented after the event has concluded.

Contact us

Questions about the Patient-Family Partner Program? Contact us at [email protected] or 253-396-6724.

Are you a current VMFH Volunteer? Visit Volgistics to access your volunteer schedule or your volunteer log hours.