Caring in Action: The Patient Care Facilitator Role

The downsizing movement left fractures in the healthcare system for patients, nurses, and healthcare providers. To heal the fractures, nurses at the Baptist Hospital of Miami developed the patient care facilitator (PCF), a clinical leadership role for nurses within a smaller area of patient responsibility (12-bed hospital), to provide caring professional nursing practice for both patients and staff. This article describes the multimethod research done to evaluate the impact of the role on continuity of care for patients and caring behaviors of nursing staff. All methods, both qualitative and quantitative, converged and clearly demonstrated the value of the PCF in providing continuity of care from a caring framework.