FAMILY ADVISOR RESOURCE PAGE
Family Advisors and WisPQC
How do providers know that healthcare improvements will be appropriate and acceptable to patients? How do they choose between all the options? Is that information in the textbooks they read as students? Is it embedded in anatomy? Or, physiology? Or, biochemistry?
If only there were a way providers could have inside information that would help shape healthcare improvement to the patient’s needs…
WAIT! There is a way! Engage patients and their families in planning and developing quality improvement initiatives!
WisPQC is proud to announce the birth of its Family Advisor commitment.

Driver Diagram for Engaging Family Advisors
According to the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) a driver diagram is a visual display of a team’s theory of what “drives,” or contributes to, the achievement of a project aim. A driver diagram shows the relationship between the overall aim of the project, the primary drivers (sometimes called “key drivers”) that contribute directly to achieving the aim, the secondary drivers that are components of the primary drivers, and specific change ideas to test for each secondary driver. (Accessed Sep 22, 2020.)
The value of a driver diagram for engaging family advisors or patient/family partner leaders in a quality improvement collaborative or initiative is that the overall aim is linked to specific change ideas or strategies.
The driver diagram identifies an aim of “All PQCs will have two or more designated patient/family partner leaders (PFP) who are core members of the PQC leadership team by January 2021.”
Three primary drivers contributing directly to achieving the aim are shown with the secondary drivers and specific change ideas.
Primary Driver 1:
Engage Multidisciplinary Advisory Committee (MAC) leaders
Primary Driver 2:
Identification, recruitment, and orientation of prepared and activated PFP(s)
Primary Driver 3:
Levels of partnership/leadership
The driver diagrams above were created by Latoshia Rouse, Lelis Vernon, and Nicole Purnell and are used with their permission. Rouse L, Vernon L, Purnell N. AIM/NNPQC Patient and Family Engagement Breakout Session. AIM/NNPQC Conference, Friday, July 24, 2020.
References
Department of Health Services. Accessed at www.dhs.wisconsin.gov