Family conferences as forums for decision making in hospital settings

Social workers in hospitals are often involved in family conferences where patient, family members and hospital personnel meet together to exchange information about the patient's condition and to plan for the future. In this paper the complexities of these meetings as decision making arenas are discussed and an outline of the three phases of family conferences--preparation, the conference meeting and follow up--is presented. The final section reports on an exploratory review of recent conferences as perceived by social workers from an acute and rehabilitation teaching hospital. The social workers' comments indicate that the conferences achieve the desired outcomes, especially for hospital staff. In this hospital the conferences are more often used for providing family members with information, and for collective decision making about the patient's future care, than for providing information to the patients about their illness and treatment.