Patient and Advisory Council: A Key Part of San Luis Valley Health's Quality Improvement

The Patient and Advisory Council works to improve areas of San Luis Valley Health's Primary Care.

In May of 2014, the Family Practice and Internal Medicine Clinics of San Luis Valley Health began their own Patient & Family Advisory Council.

This Council consists of 10 patient and/or family advisors, one R.N., one Clinic Manager, one Admission Representative, and one physician.

Our Vision

The San Luis Valley Health Patient and Family Advisory Council (PFAC) will provide a forum where patients, families, and their caregivers can share their experiences and priorities with their primary healthcare team. This is a unique and collaborative initiative to improve quality and bring a more patient and family centered focus to the delivery of primary care in the San Luis Valley.

Our Mission

To foster an environment focused on providing patient-and- family-centered primary care to the residents of San Luis Valley, the PFAC members will work with clinical and ancillary staff in the primary care departments of San Luis Valley Health to identify strengths, gaps, and challenges in the delivery of medical services at San Luis Valley Health, and—together in partnership--devise strategies to improve quality and better coordinate care. The Patient and Family Advisory Council members will assist in shaping a new healthcare delivery system at San Luis Valley Health that utilizes the valuable insight patients and families have in their own care, address their concerns, and works toward solutions in a collaborative manner.

Our Goals

The PFAC members will assist in shaping a new healthcare delivery system at San Luis Valley Health that utilizes the valuable insight patients and families have in their own care, address their concerns, and works towards solutions in a collaborative manner.

The PFAC has established goals focused on improving delivery of primary care services and building a partnership between our medical teams and our patients.

• The PFAC identified our telephone response time as a major source of frustration and concern to themselves and all our patients. As a result of this quality improvement, the members of our council actually tested our telephone response by calling with a variety of needs, some routine and some urgent. We had some positive responses and unfortunately, some responses confirmed the need for greater focus and effort to improve our customer service in this area.
• Our PFAC participated in a clinic “walkabout”, which yielded some excellent feedback that has been incorporated into our planned clinic upgrades. One improvement was trading out some of our art that was outdated and unappealing with pictures provided by our own John Thompson.

Watch our newsletter for more updates on our PFAC and our journey to being your patient and family centered medical home and your Trusted Partner in Health.