How learning collaboratives can improve community health: Insights from a patient-and family-centered care learning community

A promising approach in translating evidence-based strategies into community settings is to establish learning collaboratives. Accordingly, the Health Care Innovations Exchange, sponsored by the U.S. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), established the Patient- and Family-Centered Care (PFCC) Learning Community (PFCCLC), which focuses on advancing the practice of PFCC in acute care hospitals.

Patient- and family-centered care is an approach to health care delivery that is grounded in mutually beneficial partnerships among health care providers, patients, and families (Institute for Patient- and Family-Centered Care, 2014). Recent policy initiatives, such as the Affordable Care Act’s “Partnership for Patients” (PfP) program, supported a shift in health care delivery toward patient-clinician partnerships. Additionally, many national organizations and a growing body of research support partnering with patients as an effective way to achieve “measurable improvements in safety and quality” (AHRQ, 2013). Yet as the PfP program draws to a close, hospitals continue to struggle with implementation of PFCC. For this reason, the Health Care Innovations Exchange established a learning community focused on advancing PFCC by helping participating acute care hospitals tailor and implement replicable, evidence-based strategies. The PFCCLC consisted of representative teams from 11 Florida hospitals that received technical assistance and support from nationally recognized experts.

This presentation will share the theoretical framework used to develop the learning community, as well as lessons learned from using the PFCCLC to implement this quality improvement initiative among the participating hospitals.