Guide to Improving Patient Safety in Primary Care Settings by Engaging Patients and Families
Be Prepared To Be Engaged
With Be Prepared to Be Engaged, “Everyone wins – patients get their questions and concerns addressed at the start of the visit, and clinicians make the visit efficient.”
What Is Be Prepared To Be Engaged?
The Be Prepared To Be Engaged strategy encourages patients and their families to prepare for and become more fully engaged in their medical appointments. The goal is to help patients and families set their visit agenda and to be ready, speak up, and ask questions.
Why Use Be Prepared To Be Engaged?
Research shows that when patients wrote down an agenda before their primary care visit, 74 percent of clinicians and 79 percent of patients agreed that communication during the visit improved. More than 80 percent of the clinicians in the study wanted patients to continue to write down an agenda.
How To Implement Be Prepared To Be Engaged
Understanding a patients’ concerns and priorities is key to a safe primary care visit. Detailed implementation guidance and material descriptions are provided below.
Materials for Be Prepared To Be Engaged
To get started, first download and review these documents:
- Be Prepared To Be Engaged Implementation Quick Start Guide [PDF, 172.3 KB]
- Detailed Implementation Guidance—Full Guide, Appendix A [PDF, 419.5 KB]
Next, download and review the following documents:
- Be Prepared Patient Note Sheet [PDF, 142 KB]
- Be Prepared. Be Engaged Patient Poster [PDF, 275.6 KB]
You may also want to download and use the Training Toolkit. This Toolkit should be customized for your practice based on your planned implementation.
- Be Prepared To Be Engaged Training Toolkit
- Be Prepared Training Guide [PDF, 206.8 KB]
- Be Prepared Slides [PowerPoint, 6.1 MB; PDF, 750.4 KB]
- Be Prepared Sample Scripts [PDF, 124.8 KB]
