Family Involvement Menu Implementation Toolkit

Unmet Need
There is an unmet need of tools that encourage family members to play an active role in caring for patients. There is a current trend towards involving family members in the care of patients in hospital settings. This tool is a menu of choices relating to patient care that family members can participate in. This menu provides a physical tool as opposed to a solely behavioral tool.
 
Technology Overview
Johns Hopkins researchers have developed a ‘menu’. This ‘menu’ is a laminated list of tasks that is placed in the room of ICU patients. These tasks are related to patient care and provide the family members with the option of taking an active role in their care. The tasks are simple and not critical in nature and likely to provide comfort to both the patients and the family members. In addition, by giving the family members an option to play an active role it helps in reducing the stress and anxiety that family members face in such a situation. Further, it goes towards improving the health outcome of the patient by reducing their discomfort in having a stranger assisting them.
 

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