Basically, we are liaisons between the patient and the institution. Liaison is a great term, because it's important that everyone involved in an issue be brought into the scenario. If you don't involve all the parties, you end up with a situation where the intervenor appears to fix the problem, and that can be negative. The physician, if he or she is part of the scenario, always has to be involved. As acting chief of staff, I learned that no matter how happy the patient is after a problem is adjudicated, if you don't get the physician actively involved in the process, that physician may be involved a similar situation the next day.
Education is essential.
We're there when the normal channels don't work. It's always better to have the person on the spot solve the problem, but if that doesn't happen, we're available. To put this in perspective, it's worth mentioning that hundreds and hundreds of patients come through this hospital with no need to contact the patient representation office. This is a culturally diverse, complex environment. We operate on the assumption that the person who comes in the door or calls us has the most important problem in the world and that there are two sides to every story.