Paoli Hospital is working to improve communications with family caregivers in planning and managing transitions in care related to hospital discharge. Transitions occur when patients are admitted and discharged, or move from one setting to another (for example, from the hospital to a rehab center, a nursing home, or home). Improvements in this area can impact quality of care and patient safety. To help us evaluate our work with family caregivers, we ask that you complete the attached anonymous survey
by Monday, September 11, 2017. (In this survey, the term family caregiver is the same as lay caregiver, and can be considered interchangeably.)
The survey should take about 15 minutes to complete. Developed by the United Hospital Fund, a nonprofit research and health policy organization, the survey asks questions about your experience with lay caregivers of patients who are admitted to the hospital.
The typical patient to think about is an adult age 65 or older, who has a chronic illness or serious disability. Some likely diagnoses are stroke, congestive heart failure, and hip fracture or other trauma. This list is not comprehensive; it is only intended to be suggestive.
Family caregiver is a broad category including people who are related by blood, marriage, or adoption, as well as partners, neighbors, or friends.
A family ("lay") caregiver is the person who is going to be responsible for providing or managing the care and communicating with professionals if he patient is too ill, frail, or otherwise unable to participate fully or needs assistance in essential aspects of daily care. The family caregiver may or may not live with the patient.
Some suggestions:
1. As you think about your responses, remember that the survey is about family caregivers of patients who are unable to manage their care on their own, not all patients.
2. In answering the questions think about your experiences with family caregivers within the past month.
3. There are no right or wrong responses. The survey headings give you a wide range of responses ranging from “Always” to “Never”, with an additional category of “Don’t know/ not relevant”. Choose the heading that best describes your overall experience.
4. If you want to clarify or add something, there is a space after each section for that purpose. For example, you might say, “this always happens, but there isn’t a lot of consistency in the way it is done”, or “some other department handles this”.
If you have any questions about this survey or the project itself, the project leader’s contact information is:
Debra Laumer
484-596-2340