Patient Engagement in Low Value Care – Partner

This technical assistance package aims to provide insights and tools to implement patient engagement around overuse in your organization. Use all four components or focus on one element. Each section is broken into  sections by time commitment:

• If you have five minutes, check out our top five insights from each area.
• If you have twenty minutes, read sample scripts, review tools or listen to a short podcast.
• If you have an hour to dedicate, read the source journal articles, watch a webinar, or join our learning network to connect with others.

If you have five minutes…

Five Things to Consider when partnering with patients to reduce low-value care:

Reach out and include patients early in the planning process for reducing low-value care: Consider convening patient focus groups, conducting surveys, and/or bringing together a practice or organizational-level Patient Advisory Council to help guide your efforts

Invite patients to participate in efforts to reduce low-value care: Patients are more likely to partner in improvement efforts when they feel valued and informed by their clinician; clinicians can invite patients to partner in efforts to reduce low-value care, either as individuals in advisory groups or broadly across the practice; consider sending a personal note or letter, or mentioning the initiative during a patient visit.

Focus on things that matter to patients: When identifying areas of low-value care for focus, look for opportunities that address issues that matter to patients – e.g., reducing expensive testing that would reduce their out-of-pocket payments or likely downstream costs.

Ensure that patients have an authentic voice in informing improvement efforts: Patients who take the time to give input want to know they’ve been heard. Create a mechanism for getting input from patients and ensure that there is a structure that reliably reflects that you’ve heard their input; consider including patients on your internal/practice-based quality improvement team.

Partner with community-based organizations to provide public education on low-value care:  In addition to changing provider behaviors, a key goal of Choosing Wisely is to change public opinion and raise patient perceptions about low-value care. Partnering with community-based organizations and media can help to amplify needed messaging.

If you have 20 minutes…

Read

• Principles for Patient and Family Partnership in Care: American College of Physicians Position Paper Table 1 – ACP offers a table that includes strategies for implementing patient and family partnerships.
• Partnering With Patients to Help Heal Healthcare – “Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes” showcases research that focuses on patient engagement and patient-centered outcomes.
• Partnering with Patients to Improve Quality, Safety, and Patient Experience – (AHRQ 2016) A case study from First Street Family Health Center in Salida, Colorado depicts success of Patient Advisory Committees (PACs) and Patient and Family Advisory Committees (PFACs).

Watch

• Patient Engagement in 10 Minutes or Less:  online “bite-sized learning” modules

Do

• Consider using the guide “Inviting Patient and Family Participation in Implementation of Choosing Wisely® Tools” when working to partner with patients to implement Choosing Wisely in your practice.

If you have sixty minutes…

Read

• Engaging Patients and the Public in Choosing Wisely– This article discusses “why patient and public engagement is important for tackling overuse.”
• Patient and Family Engagement in the United States: A Social Movement from Patient to Advocate to Partner (Patient Engagement – 2019) This article describes how “the shift from patients as passive recipients of care to advocates to partners reflects multiple areas of influence.”
• Treating, Fast and Slow: Americans’ Understanding of and Responses to Low‐Value Care – “This study offers fresh insight into how Americans think about ‘value’ – and how their concepts might be enriched.”

• Principles for Patient and Family Partnership in Care: American College of Physicians Position Paper This paper discusses patient engagement benefits and barriers, including improved patient satisfaction, lower costs, and improved patient ability to follow care plans.

Watch

• Integrating Patient & Family Engagement into Choosing Wisely Implementation This webinar features stories from patient advisors about their experiences collaborating with practices to implement Choosing Wisely.

Do

• Consider using this toolkit when taking steps to partner with patients: Partnering with Patients & Families to Enhance Safety & Quality – A Mini-Toolkit  This toolkit provides various lists and resources that patients and families can use to aid in serving as advisors.

• Use a strategy Choosing Wisely grantees have tried:
  •  “Lessons Learned from Patient Engagement” This guide from Baby Boomers for Balanced Health Care helps facilitate small group community conversations about overuse in medical care and counter the idea that more is always better. The guide includes a one-page orientation for facilitators, followed by a process guide, handouts and videos.