Family-Centered Care: Examples, Barriers, and Elements Analysis

This essay delves into the concept of family-centered care in nursing, exploring its practical applications through real-world examples. The essay examines prevalent themes such as communication and collaboration, highlighting their significance in patient care. It also addresses the barriers that hinder family-centered care, including fear, opposing priorities, and inadequate resources, while also presenting strategies that support its implementation, such as committed leadership and family involvement in decision-making. Furthermore, the essay analyzes a video example, identifying elements consistent with family-centered care, like open communication and building on patient strengths, and discusses the potential barriers to its effective implementation. The essay concludes by emphasizing the importance of family-centered care in enhancing patient outcomes and ensuring comprehensive healthcare delivery.

Running Head: FAMILY-CENTERED CARE 1
FAMILY-CENTERED CARE
Name
Institutional Affiliation

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Family-centered care
Examples of how my nursing colleagues bring families into their nursing practice.
During my conversations with my fellow nurses, the issue of family centered care has
come up on numerous occasions. For instance, one of my colleagues explained to me a scenario
where a patient, aged five years, was referred to undergo a tracheostomy due to recurrent
aspiration, chronic lung ailment and vocal cord paralysis. The patient underwent surgery which
was followed by the dislodging of the tracheostomy tube thrice during his first-night post-op.
The tracheostomy tube sutured in place at the side of the hospital bed after occurrence of the
third dislodging. As a result of this, the patient suffered immense pain. The tube dislodged once
more, prompting the surgeon to hold a meeting with the parents of the patient to discuss possible
options (Kuo et al., 2012). The father of the child volunteered to hold the tube so that it does not
dislodge again while keeping the patient calm. The discussion went on for a while after which
the surgeon decided to put in place the tube gain. The child’s father held the tracheostomy tube
for about seventy-two hours after which it successfully held.
Prevalent themes
Nurses do a lot of things to bring family members to their practice. Various themes
manifest themselves as they do so. Communication is one of the themes that is most prevalent.
Health care professionals, particularly nurses, communicate complete information with patients
and their families in affirming ways. Open communication enables better service provision and
reduces room for error. Collaboration is another prevalent theme. It entails collaboration among
providers, patients, and family members in program and policy development, in the delivery of
care as well as in professional education.

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Barriers to family-centered care
Fear is one of the hindrances to family-centered care. Fear that the suggestions of
families’ and patients’ might be unreasonable. Concern that families and patients will tamper
with confidentiality. Also, the belief that family centered care is unnecessary and the notion that
there is no sufficient evidence for family-centered care. Opposing priorities and inadequate fiscal
resources is another barrier to family centered care (Boztepe and Kerimoğlu, 2017)
Supports to family-centered care
The availability of leaders who are committed and know to collaborate with families and
patients is one of the support to family centered care. Additionally, ensuring that families and
patients are involved in decision making by creating ways that enable them to act as advisors in
an organization. Furthermore, an investment that is geared towards the training and orientation of
family-centered care and strategies that facilitate effective collaboration among families,
physicians, staff and patients (Lloyd et al., 2018).
Elements that Ann mentioned and are consistent with family-centered care
In the video, Ann says that “somebody was never more than a phone call away,” which
means that there open communication between the hospital staff and Ann’s family (Ann, 2012).
Open communication is one of the principles that govern family-centered care. During her last
days, Ann’s sister participated in scrapbooking with Ann together with the aid of nurses. The
nurses contributed to building Ann’s strengths as a result of their involvement in scrapbooking.
Building on the strengths of patients is one of the principles of family-centered care.

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Reasons as to why these elements are essential in support of families
Ann mentions the element of open communication and building on the strength of
patients in the video. Open communication is crucial in the treatment of patients as it minimizes
confusion which in turn reduces chances of errors occurring. Patients are vulnerable, and
therefore, nurses should focus on building their strengths just as nurses did in Ann’s sister case
by participating in scrapbooking (Tamas, 2014).
Potential barriers to Ann’s sister family-centered care
Withholding crucial medical information is one of the obstacles that would hinder family-
centered care in this case. Ann’s sister had cancer, a severe and deadly disease. If the oncologist
had hidden important information regarding Ann’s sister condition, such as her stage of cancer, it
would have been unfair to her as she deserves to know the truth about her health.

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References
Ann F (2012, December 12). Patient and Family-centered Care at the University of Michigan.
Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i39ax9Vkbik.
Boztepe, H., & Kerimoğlu Yıldız, G. (2017). Nurses perceptions of barriers to implementing
family‐centered care in a pediatric setting: A qualitative study. Journal for Specialists in
Pediatric Nursing, 22(2), e12175.
Kuo, D. Z., Houtrow, A. J., Arango, P., Kuhlthau, K. A., Simmons, J. M., & Neff, J. M. (2012).
Family-centered care: current applications and future directions in pediatric health
care. Maternal and child health journal, 16(2), 297-305.
Lloyd, B., Elkins, M., & Innes, L. (2018). Barriers and enablers of patient and family centred
care in an Australian acute care hospital: Perspectives of health managers. Patient
Experience Journal, 5(3), 55-64.
Tamas, S. (2014). Scared kitless: Scrapbooking spaces of trauma. Emotion, Space and
Society, 10, 87-94.