Family meetings

I remember a patient with an upper gastrointestinal bleed, a Minnesota tube in place, on maximum ventilatory support, and two blood pressure machines, who obviously wasn’t feeling well. I used to be checking one other blood product with a nurse friend when the consultant doctor got here in and told members of the family on the bedside that “his numbers looked good.” He then smiled and left the room. The family responded with a sigh of relief and “thank God” while the opposite nurse and I checked out one another as if to ask “what just happened here?”

Have you experienced similar situations? I hesitate to list a clinician’s area of ​​expertise because I don’t need to misjudge any specialty or make generalizations. The point, nonetheless, is that sometimes an individual circuitously involved within the patient’s day by day care may make observations about patients or their families and provides them a message that is probably not appropriate. Nor is it at all times a false hope; perhaps the patient is feeling higher, but his _______ (you’ll be able to fill within the blank – rash, glucose level, wound, etc.) just isn’t healing or normalizing, and the caregiver can concentrate on this one clinical symptom when talking to the patient and members of the family .

For this reason, I used to be each surprised and discouraged after I read the outcomes of a recent study published in “A Trial of the Effectiveness of an Intensive Communication Structure for Families of Long-Term ICU Patients.” In this study, 135 ICU patients received “usual care” and 346 ICU patients participated in weekly family meetings during which the patient’s progress and goals were discussed. Researchers examined the effect of this intervention on length of stay and located no significant difference between the 2 groups.

Despite the negative results of this study, it will be important to recollect the positives or advantages of sitting together with your family in formal meetings where information might be shared and questions answered. For example, regular family meetings may mean you can:

• Provide personal contact
• Provide updates on the patient’s health status and treatment options
• Discuss the prognosis
• Find out more concerning the patient and their family, including their expectations and desires
• Gain the chance to create a relationship based on trust and care
• Adapt the treatment plan to the input of all staff and the patient’s family.

Please allow me to reference the next quote from the authors in summarizing this study:

What is the usual procedure for initiating, planning and participating in family meetings within the workplace?