Just Read: Patient & Family Health Care Leadership: A Resource Compendium from the National Academy of Medicine

So you would like to learn about patient and family health care leadership, where it’s happening and what the results are (and why wouldn’t you, I always want to).

This compendium has just been published as a body of work of the participants in the Patient & Family Health Care Leadership Network convened by the National Academy of Medicine, part of the National Academies of Sciences (@NASciences). So while not a report of the NAS, sometimes, like this time, compiling what is known is a great thing. And this compendium has both the leading institutions and the leading people represented – I was fortunate to join a meeting of the Network, and it was fantastic.

Thanks to Deidtra Henderson (@dee_henderson) at the NAS for being a part of this, sharing it with all of us, and posting it so others may enjoy.

This Compendium was created to assist and to inform volunteer patient & family council leaders and such leaders have contributed valuable feedback from its inception to its completion. It presents summary information on available evidence and information about the impact of patient and family engagement on health care outcomes and care improvement. It is intended to be a continuously updated living resource, and suggestions for inclusion are encouraged.

The compendium also has links to short video testimonials like this one, from one of the nation’s leaders in respecting patient and family involvement, Georgia Regents’ University, who I’ve spent time with previously, and where I was fortunate to be exposed to the leadership of Pat Sodomka, F.A.C.H.E., who I will always remember as the person who involved patients and families not because she had to, because it was the thing to do as a leader (see: Remembering Pat Sodomka, F.A.C.H.E.).

Ted Eytan, MD