The Patient Passport Program: An Intervention to Improve Patient–Provider Communication for Hospitalized Minority Children and Their Families

ObjectiveEffective patient–provider communication is essential to improve health care delivery and satisfaction and to minimize disparities in care for minorities. The objective of our study was to evaluate the impact of a patient–provider communication program, the Patient Passport Program, to improve communication and satisfaction for hospitalized minority children.MethodsThis was a qualitative evaluation of a communication project for families with hospitalized children. Families were assigned to either the Patient Passport Program or to usual care. The Passport Program consisted of a personalized Passport book and additional medical rounds with medical providers. Semistructured interviews at the time of patient discharge were conducted with all participants to measure communication quality and patient/family satisfaction. Inductive qualitative methods were used to identify common themes.ResultsOf the 40 children enrolled in the Passport Program, 60% were boys; the mean age was 9.7 years (range, 0.16–19 years). The most common themes in the qualitative analysis of the interviews were: 1) organization of medical care; 2) emotional expressions about the hospitalization experience; and 3) overall understanding of the process of care. Spanish- and English-speaking families had similar patient satisfaction experiences, but the Passport families reported improved quality of communication with the medical care team.ConclusionsThe Patient Passport Program enhanced the quality of communication among minority families of hospitalized children with some common themes around the medical care expressed in the Passport book.