The best way to build a partnership with your care center is to meet with and speak personally to the staff. Many care centers are already involved in quality improvement work and will be open to your offer to help.
If your care center is not working with people with CF and families on quality improvement, consider starting a conversation with a member of the staff that you have a relationship with, or with your care center Director.
Sending a letter can also help to get things going. You can use the following letter template as a way to start a partnership at your care center.
[DATE]
Dr. [Name of CF Care Center Director] and Staff
[Address]
Dear Dr. [Name] and Staff,
In CF care centers across the country, quality improvement work is enhancing health and well being for people with CF and their families. Healthcare providers are also benefiting from quality improvement efforts.
Now, the people with CF and their families at [Name of CF Care Center Hospital/Clinic] want to get involved.
We want to work as partners to help you improve the quality of care and the level of satisfaction among people with CF, their families and healthcare providers.
CF has already brought us together as a team, starting from the time of diagnosis. We meet in exam rooms, over hospital beds and at educational seminars. We evaluate problems, try out our options and review our progress. The skills we have built so far will help us in our efforts to create the best CF care possible.
The Cystic Fibrosis Foundation offers a toolkit with success stories from other care centers, tips for getting people involved and strategies for partnering to create a quality improvement team. It’s called, “Action Guide for Accelerating Improvement in Cystic Fibrosis Care,” and you can get a copy by calling 800-FIGHT-CF.
We would like to meet with you to share these ideas and learn more about quality improvement from your perspective. We look forward to hearing from you soon, and thank you for the opportunity to improve CF care together at [Name of Hospital/Clinic].
Sincerely,
[Signatures of people with CF/families]
[Name of advisory group (if applicable) and contact information]
