Patients as Front-Line Owners and Partners in Improving Quality and Safety

As patient partners, we are pleased by the success of the front-line ownership (FLO) approach in advancing safe care in a variety of initiatives and settings. The FLO underlying principles and approach deeply resonate with us as illustrated in the following quotes from the paper: "Nothing about me without me," "Most passionate change agents are not in roles that typically get invited to participate," "Inviting anybody who is interested in the problem at hand," "FLO creates a way to break down hierarchies, increase positive dialogue between diverse players in organizations, and encourage people who may not have felt empowered previously to come forward and problem-solve." It is not described in the article if and how patients and/or patient partners were involved; therefore, we call on the authors to follow up with that information because it can provide valuable lessons to others who will be looking at implementing FLO in their organizations. Based on our decade-long experience as patient partners at all system levels, on literature and leading practices (key references included) we argue that patients have an important role to play in improvement initiatives and recommend partnering with patients in all improvement efforts.