Jamaica and Flushing Hospital Launch Their Patient And Family Advisory Councils

Jamaica Hospital Medical Center and Flushing Hospital Medical Center each held their inaugural Patient and Family Advisory Council (PFAC) meetings on October 14th and 15th respectively. The PFAC meetings are a product of our collaboration with the Planetree initiative and mark a significant step in the MediSys Health Network’s path to becoming a person-centered organization.

PFAC was established to provide our hospitals with a fresh perspective, from the eyes of our patients, and use that knowledge to potentially transform how we deliver care. At these meetings, patients and their family members are asked to share their experiences while at our hospitals and provide feedback about what we are doing well as well as how we can continue to make improvements.

These dedicated individuals, known as PFAC advisors, will meet monthly with an interdisciplinary group of hospital team members. These advisors were specially selected based on the meaningful interactions they had with our team while either they or their loved ones were rendered care at our hospitals. The advisors’ insights serve as valuable information, as we look to continue to improve our patients’ experiences.

We would like to acknowledge these valuable members not only for volunteering their time but also for their passion for improving caring interactions within the walls of our institutions, which many of us call our second home.  The first two advisors to join Jamaica Hospital’s Patient and Family Advisory Council are Caridad Diaz and Lydia Guzman.  Runa Khan and Andrew Sheppard have both graciously agreed to serve as Flushing Hospital’s PFAC advisors.

The advisors meet on the second Monday of every month at Jamaica Hospital and third Tuesday at Flushing Hospital. Each of them has made a two-year commitment to the Patient and Family Advisory Council.

For more information about the PFAC program at Jamaica Hospital, please contact Emilia Escamilla-Rebaza at 718-206-8983 or email her at EEscamil@jhmc.org.

For more information about the PFAC program at Flushing Hospital, please contact Daryl Arcinas at 718-670-8930 or e-mail him at DArcinas.flushing@jhmc.org.