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Partnering for Patient Empowerment Through Community Awareness (PPECA), a hospital-library collaborative program, has released new content. The PPECA Facilitator's Guide and module presentations are now freely available. The modules and guide will provide direction on presenting a patient safety program that hospitals and libraries can host together to increase awareness among consumers about patient safety.

"We felt it was important to participate in a program that shared information on how patients could become proactive partners in their own safe care," stated Carolyn Anthony, Director of Skokie Public Library, one of the PPECA library participants. Roxanne Goeltz, co-founder of Consumers Advancing Patient Safety (CAPS) and consumer speaker on patient safety agreed: "Patients must prepare themselves to be more involved in their healthcare. The atmosphere and resources available at the public libraries partnered with the knowledge and dedication of the hospitals will strengthen the safety net for all patients."

To develop the PPECA model, five northern Illinois hospitals and public libraries worked together to refine content and the program development process. The free Facilitator's Guide shares that expertise so others can initiate similar adult education sessions that feature health care practitioners, librarians and consumers as speakers. Program planners who need additional content for their sessions can access streaming video of the presentations from the project Web site at http://www.galter.northwestern.edu/PPECA/index.htm.

PPECA is the first model for building patient safety awareness through participatory community partnerships involving a public library and a healthcare institution. "Public libraries have a history of providing educational programs on topics of interest to their communities," says Linda Walton, associate director, Galter Health Sciences Library and PPECA principal investigator. "Many people feel more comfortable in a public library environment than in a hospital setting for learning."

The educational sessions include three short presentations designed to raise consumer awareness of:

• The consumer's role in working with healthcare providers to manage risk of avoidable patient injury;
  
  
• Patient-centered clinical and systems-based approaches to patient safety; and
  
  
• Effective medical information gathering to support safe care.