Category: Resource

‘Patient, Family, and Care Partner Advisor PFCA’ toolkit outlines best practices within healthcare ecosystems. This toolkit can serve as a guide for individuals and organizations looking to incorporate patient-centered approaches into their decision-making processes and for PFCA’s direct involvement.

This comprehensive document helps patients and families track current medications, vaccinations, health conditions and other important medical information.

The Social Needs Screening tool screens for five core health-related social needs, which include housing, food, transportation, utilities, and personal safety, using validated screening questions, as well as the additional needs of employment, education, child care, and financial strain.

This Staff Stability Toolkit is an Excel file that contains individual worksheets focused on selected areas related to “staff stability”.

The tool is intended to offer a “snapshot” of your current staffing situation allowing you to collect and analyze areas for detailed and focused areas such as

• Employment Status – The makeup of your current staffing situation as it relates to “full-time”, “part-time” and “per diem” employment status
• Current Staff by Length of Service – Summarizing the current staff into Length of Service classifications across several categories from “< 6 months” through “10 Years or More”
• Vacant Positions – Current vacant positions by FTEs across all departments and shifts
• Turnover Rates – The calculation of turnover rates by “Overall Facility” with the opportunity to drill down by individual departments or groups
• Cost of Turnover – The calculation of “Turnover Replacement Costs” to include recruitment, vacancy costs, and training/orientation costs based on current rate of terminations by position
• Terminations by Length of Service – Collects both the number and percentage of terminations either by “Employee Choice” or “Employer Choice” across several Length of Service categories from “< 6 months” through “10 Years or More”
• Absenteeism – The collection of Call-In Statistics by department and shift for categories to include “timely call-in”, “shift replaced”, “replaced with overtime”, “replaced with agency”, and any “incentives” that were paid for the replacement of the individual call-in. The categories are summarized and graphed by department and shift with the calculation of an overall call-in percentage related to scheduled shifts
• Financial Incentives – The collection and summary of any incentive programs currently in place with an annual cost estimate

It is believed that by collecting and analyzing these focused “costs”, a facility will be better positioned to strategize and plan their approaches to improve and maintain the staffing stability within their individual facility.

Buprenorphine for Chronic Pain: A Patient’s Guide

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention more than 50 Million adults in the US have chronic pain.

Working closely with healthcare providers to find effective treatment for chronic pain is important. This informational guide is designed to aid patients and their medical providers in their discussion about treatment options.

Chronic pain can affect sleep, lead to anxiety and fear, or weaken daily life coping strategies. Chronic pain can also affect family, coworkers and friends.

People living with chronic pain can experience stigma. This is when others do not think their pain is real, blame them for their pain, or feel the person just wants drugs.

Buprenorphine is a medication developed in the late 1960s. It was
first approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for chronic
pain in 1981 and for opioid use disorder (OUD) in 2002. Studies show it is
safer than other opioids. Today it is used to treat moderate to severe
chronic pain and OUD.

Mediation Reconciliation Action Plan

Medication Reconciliation (Med Rec), the practice of verification, clarification, and final reconciliation of medications during care transitions (admissions, discharges, and intra-facility transfers) is an important process for every facility and should be evaluated to ensure patient safety and quality. The Med Rec action plan provides templated SMART goals, links to resources such as the MARQUIS Toolkit, key action steps with PDSA cycles and associated SMART goals, and pre and post-test knowledge checks to help your facility strengthen its current practices and identify opportunities for improvement. By providing a structure to address the careful review of all medications, including high risk medications, supplements, topicals, eye drops, non-traditional, medicinal or recreational substances, other easily forgotten medications, and over-the-counter products, a facility can increase safety, reduce duplications and omissions, prevent errors, and mitigate the occurrence of adverse drug events (ADEs) and rehospitalizations related to transitions across the continuum of care.

IPRO Health Equity Action Framework

Example IPRO Health Equity Action Framework

Presentation Slides 10/31/2024

The IPRO Health Equity Action Framework has 15 suggested actions that guide users through a logical process for more equitable care delivery. Organizations can use the Framework to help identify health disparities, the populations most impacted by those disparities, evidence-based interventions to address the disparities, performance measures to evaluate progress, and anticipated barriers and mitigators.

 

Living with AVF or AVG

This resource is designed to help nursing home patients, residents and their care partners understand the basics of living with their new Arteriovenous Fistula or Arteriovenous Graft.

A Pathway to Transforming Patient Care through a Pain and Opioid Learning Health System (LHS) Collaborative (POLLC)

Webinar Recording

Slides and recording from a webinar about a learning community to advance Learning Health Systems to improve pain and opioid management, including implications of learning community activities and products for others. The webinar centers on a panel discussion of learning community benefits to participants and beyond.

Medication Safety Clinical Teach-Back Cards

Reference these cards for information on using the “teach-back” method to explain the basics about medications, prepare your patients to take care of themselves and review side effects. The medication safety team reviewed and updated this card set in August 2024.

CDC’s 2022 Clinical Practice Guideline for Prescribing Opioids Training

This training highlights the 12 recommendations and information on implementation and includes patient scenarios.

Physicians, nurses, and other health professionals can receive free continuing education for this training by registering on CDC TRAIN. Search for course number WB4701 and complete the evaluation. WB4701 Accreditation Statement

Training: CDC’s 2022 Clinical Practice Guideline for Prescribing Opioids for Pain

Highlights the 12 recommendations and information on implementation and includes patient scenarios.

Physicians, nurses, and other health professionals can receive free continuing education for this training by registering on CDC TRAIN. Search for course number WB4701 and complete the evaluation. WB4701 Accreditation Statement

Psychotropic Medication Change Package

This Psychotropic Change Package provides a resource with steps toward reducing and managing psychotropic medications in long term care. It includes step-by-step actions with several resources to help the facility plan its psychotropic reduction process, including
an Antipsychotic Action Plan template with SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Timebound) goals.

The IPRO Patient, Family, and Care Partner Advisor Living Toolkit

The “Patient, Family and Care Partner Advisor (PFCA)” living toolkit outlines best practices and examples for including diverse experiences and voices in healthcare. This toolkit can guide individuals and organizations looking to incorporate patient-centered approaches into their decision-making processes, as well as for direct involvement of PFCA. This toolkit is a valuable resource for PFCAs and healthcare organizations. It is meant to be shared, discussed, and implemented across the healthcare ecosystem.