Family Advisory Board provides valuable input

	Texas Children’s realized that families could offer a valuable perspective — the customer perspective.

By Marla Driscoll

Texas Children’s Family Advisory Board was born six years ago out of a few concerned parents who wanted to make a great facility even better. These parents partnered with Texas Children’s Hospital on its renovation and expansion, and the hospital realized that families could offer a valuable perspective — the customer perspective — in a number of other areas. Since then, the Family Advisory Board has partnered with and advised physicians, clinics and administrators on issues ranging from pet therapy to patient safety.

The Family Advisory Board is working with the physicians, staff and administrators on extending the concepts of family-centered care throughout Texas Children’s Hospital. Family-centered care offers a new way of thinking about the relationships between families and health care providers — where families are viewed as an integral part of the health care team, where communications are open and timely, and where everyone is treated with dignity and respect. Family-centered care leads to higher quality and safer care (“Crossing the Quality of Chasm,” by the Institute of Medicine), as well as greater adherence to treatment plans, increased family and professional satisfaction with care, improved market position and decreased legal risk.

Our current family-centered care efforts include parent-to-parent support, education of parents on how to be an advocate for their children with medical needs, and sharing of our perspectives with physicians in small group sessions. (For more information on the group sessions or to schedule a session for your department, please contact Dr. Robert Warren.) In addition, we will soon field family members to participate on Texas Children’s patient safety and health information systems committees, and we are investigating a pilot of parental participation in rounds.

We on the Family Advisory Board are here to give a family's voice to the issues you encounter each day. If you would like more information about the Family Advisory Board or how we might be able to help you, please contact Alma Martinez-Odom at 832-824-1923.

Marla Driscoll is the co-chair of the Texas Children’s Hospital Family Advisory Board.

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