ROBERT PIERCE
• Leader & Times
Southwest Medical Center is excited to announce the launch of its Patient Family Advisory Council for this fall.
The initiative aims to enhance the patient experience by integrating insights from community members, particularly focusing on communication about health conditions.
SWMC Marketing and Business Development Director Janeth Vazquez said the hospital is inviting individuals and families who have navigated the health care system to join in this important work.
“The PFAC will serve as a vital platform for sharing perspectives, fostering collaboration and improving the quality of care provided to our patients,” she said.
Vazquez added the voices of patients and families are essential in shaping health care practices.
“We believe by working together, we can create a more responsive and effective health care environment,” she said.
The PFAC will meet regularly to discuss and address various aspects of the medical diagnosis process, ensuring services reflect the needs and experiences of the community.
SWMC Nurse Manager Jesse Ruiz said the hospital is simply wanting to learn and grow its processes.
“With that, we want community involvement,” he said. “We want to hear some stories of some problems, concerns, issues the community has. We can’t grow in our process without their input. A lot of facilities are doing these Patient Family Advisory Councils to learn, grow and help with processes.”
SWMC launched its first PFAC in 2021 during the COVID-19 pandemic, and Ruiz said at the time, the focus was on ways to better handle the pandemic.
“Now, we’re looking to improve our communication with patients,” he said.
Kelly Denton, director of SWMC’s Diagnostic Imaging department, said this means getting answers to many questions.
“Patients’ results, how are you getting your results?” she said. “If you’re an inpatient and we do tests on you, are they communicating those results? When they are communicating those results, are they communicating in verbiage you understand?”
Denton said many times, health care workers talk in their own terms, but she said it is important to make sure patients are understanding what is going on, what their processes are and what is needed to improve care.
“How is that communication back to you?” she said. “It’s not just inpatient stuff. That’s a big part of it. We want you to know your care and know your results, but there’s people who come in every day for outpatient testing. How about those results? Are they getting communicating to your doctor’s office?”
With earliest results being available at 24 to 48 hours after a test, Denton said how results are communicated is also important.
“Is the portal working?” she said. “Do people have access to the portal? Do people know about the portal? How is that communication going?”
Ruiz said health care personnel need to know if they have drop the ball by forgetting to follow up, call and let patients know their results.
“How can we fix that?” he said. “What can we do? We need to hear those stories from the people. We don’t want that to happen. To improve our processes, we need to know what’s going on.”
As for letting patients understand what is happening, Denton recalled one of her own experiences with this.
“I think back to many years ago when my grandmother was in the hospital up in South Dakota,” she said. “I went to her the next morning to see how she was, and she goes, ‘They’re going to do a mama.’ I said ‘a mammogram?’ She said, ‘Yes what is that?’ I said, ‘It’s X-rays of your breasts because we think there’s cancer in it.’ She said, ‘Then they’re going to do a mas.’ I said, ‘a masectomy?’ She said, ‘Yes, what’s that?’ I said, ‘That’s surgery to remove the breast.’”
With this in mind, Denton said health care workers need to use terms patients understand.
“How do we need to speak to the patient?” she said. “If I tell you your CBC (complete blood count) is high, do you know what that is? Do you know what a CBC is? Some people don’t. Drilling that down and communicating what that is and why and what we can do to improve it. Are we explaining enough so you understand?”
During the pandemic, Ruiz said SWMC officials got to hear from patients who were in the hospital at that time.
“They helped us learn our processes and things they saw,” he said. “They shared their story, and it was like across the nation. They were isolated. They were in a room. They had no family communication. We tried better communicating things and learning from those experiences. It was after the fact, so we learned if it was to happen again, we know we’ve got to handle our communications a little better.”
This is Denton’s first time working with the PFAC, and she said part of what the committee wants to focus on now is communication of medications.
“Now, they have a discharge packet,” she said. “Every time they’re given a new medicine, there’s a paper that goes in the packet that explains about the medicine, what it’s for. They now do discharge phone calls a few days later to make sure you got your meds.”
Denton said it is important for patients to understand how to take their medications to ensure they are not having any side effects.
“There’s a few things they go through now with packets we send patients home with after they’re discharged from an inpatient stay and also following up a couple days by calling them at home and seeing how they’re doing,” she said.
Ruiz said it is good for patients to tell their stories.
“We wouldn’t have known what they went through, what the families went through, and we had some of the patients talk to us,” he said. “If we didn’t have their input, if they didn’t share their stories, we would’ve not known the other side of it. We are health care. We go in, do, perform and take care of the patients, but there’s another side to it.”
Now, PFAC is looking to recruit new members, and Ruiz said hospital leaders want the community involved in what SWMC is doing to help improve medical processes.
“Someone may come into the ER, get an X-ray or some lab tests,” he said. “On discharge, we’re telling them to follow up with your provider. Did we ask if they have a provider? If we sent them to them, did they actually follow up. We’re seeing some gaps we can improve on. We’d like for them to share their story to help us with the improvement process and give us some ideas on how we can improve. We need to hear from the other side.”
Denton said thus far, PFAC has been impactful in helping improve how SWMC works.
“You don’t know what you don’t know until they start telling you,” she said. “We don’t know the other side. We assume they’re going to their provider or they’re discharged with an order to have an MRI in three or four days, and they go to their primary doctor to get those results.”
However, Denton said hospital workers need to make sure a patient did have their MRI in this situation and even calling to schedule the exam.
“We want to make sure we’re following all those steps, but we need their input to help us – those who’ve had visits either to the clinics or to the inpatients,” she said. “Maybe it’s a clinic thing where they went to see one of the providers. They ordered a test, and we had to get it certified through their insurance. Did all that go smoothly? Did something fall through the cracks? How was our communication with you during that process?”
With each passing year, Ruiz said SWMC gets better and better with the input of PFAC, and he said there is a clearer understanding of the need to have community’s help with this.
“There’s two sides to every story, and if they go out and tell their friends and share it out in the community, they’re leaving us out,” he said. “We want to know what’s going on, and good or bad, we want that input so we can improve our processes. It’s a work in progress and continually growing both the community and ourselves so we can improve our processes for the community. If we have a better understanding, we can improve, make it better so we don’t have those issues.”
Denton said, though, one of the harder things with PFAC is to find people willing to serve on the committee and for community members to take time to become part of the process.
“Everybody’s busy, and it’s time out of your day,” she said. “This year, we’re moving to see when it works. Before, they traditionally had evening meetings, and we know there’s school, there’s church. There’s lots of things happening in the evenings, so this year, we’re going to try meetings over the lunch hour. Have a lunch so they don’t miss lunch, and visit during that time. We’re going to see if we can get some different community members to apply for the program. You do have to apply for the program. Maybe we’ll get a little more interest.”
Denton said hospital employees do not want to, nor will they take feedback negatively.
“We want to learn where we can grow as a facility,” she said.
To get involved, interested community members are encouraged to apply by Oct. 20. To apply or for more information, visit www.swmedcenter.com, or contact Vazquez or Rachel Downing at 620-629-6335.
“They’ll have a spot on our Web site where they can go to do applications for PFAC,” Denton said. “Janeth will have stuff on social media. Find us on Facebook, or go to our Web site at swmedcenter.com. Janeth will have links out there to apply for it. If you don’t have Internet, call the hospital and ask to talk to marketing. Janeth or Rachel will get you involved with that.”
“Join us in making a difference in the health care experience for our community,” Vazquez said.
