Transforming Hospitals With Patient & Family Advisory Councils w/ Barbara Lewis

How do we make sure hospitals are truly listening to the people they serve?

In this episode, I am joined by Jill Adolphe from Planetree to talk to Barbara Lewis, a powerhouse advocate for the patient voice and founder of Healthcare PX. What started as a personal tragedy for Barbara became a mission to elevate how hospitals engage with patients and families through PFACs (Patient and Family Advisory Councils).

We discuss why PFACs too often become symbolic and how, with the right metrics and leadership support, they can become engines of real change. Barbara shares what the best-performing councils do differently, why measurement is everything, and how hospitals like Kaiser Permanente have set a gold standard.

We also talk about the future of PFACs and why they must evolve alongside digital health, AI, and new care models. It’s also time healthcare catches up with other industries in valuing customer feedback.

Barbara is the author of the book: The Marketing Success Book. Interested in researching hospital Patient and Family Advisory Councils (PFACs), she went back to school, obtaining a PhD from UNLV School of Public Health in 2025, where she currently teaches. Her dissertation was a mixed-method study on Patient and Family Advisory Councils (PFACs).

🎧 Listen now and learn how to prove the value of the patient voice and PFACs!

Key Takeaways

Introduction (00:00)

Barbara Lewis’s journey and research (01:17)

Defining success for PFACs (05:51)

Challenges and barriers in PFACs sustainability (08:39)

Best practices for high-performing PFACs (10:43)