Patient-and-Family Centered Care

Patient-and-Family Centered Care is an approach to healthcare that shapes healthcare policies, programs, facility design, and day-to-day interactions among patients, families, physicians, and other healthcare professionals.  Healthcare professionals who practice Patient-and-Family Centered Care recognize the vital role that families play in ensuring the health and well-being of children and family members of all ages.  These practitioners acknowledge that emotional, social, and developmental supports are integral components of healthcare.  They respect each child and family’s innate strengths and view the healthcare experience as an opportunity to build on these strengths and support families in their care-giving and decision-making roles.  Patient-and-Family Centered approaches lead to better health outcomes and wiser allocation of resources as well as greater patient and family satisfaction.

Patient-and-Family Centered Care  in pediatrics is based on the understanding that the family is the child’s primary source of strength and support and that the child’s and family’s perspectives and information are important in clinical decision making.  Patient-and-Family Centered practitioners are keenly aware that healthcare experiences can enhance parents’ confidence in their roles and, over time, increase the competence of children and young adults to take responsibility for their own healthcare, particularly in anticipation of the transition to adult service systems.

Patient-and-Family Centered Care  is grounded in collaboration among patients, families, and all hospital personnel for the planning, delivery, and evaluation of healthcare as well as in the education of healthcare workers.  Continuing our goal to be recognized as a center of excellence in pediatric care, Children’s Specialized Hospital is committed to the integration of Patient-and-Family Centered  principles into our healthcare policies and practices across the continuum of care provided by our institution.  In placing the needs of the child and family at the center of all activities, we will fulfill our mission and embody the values of Patient-and-Family Centered Care  and Children’s Specialized Hospital by:

• Respecting each child and his or her family as partners in care
• Honoring diversity and its effect on the family’s experience and perception of care through recognizing that each family is unique in their structure, values, culture, ethnic orientation, spiritual beliefs, social-economics, educational, and geographic diversity
• Building on the strengths of each child and family, even in difficult and challenging situations, by acknowledging each family’s priorities and levels of expertise, recognizing and respecting different methods of coping, and implementing comprehensive services that provide developmental, educational, emotional, environmental, and financial supports
• Supporting and facilitating choice for the child and family about approaches to care and support
• Ensuring flexibility in organizational policies, procedures, and provider practices to reflect diversity and meet the needs, beliefs, personalities, life experiences, spiritual and cultural values of each child and family
• Providing formal and informal support for each child and family
• Collaborating with families at all levels of healthcare, in the care of the individual child and in professional education, policy making, and program development, through the exchange of honest and unbiased information on an ongoing basis and in ways that are useful and affirming
• Empowering children and families to discover their own strengths, build confidence, and make choices and decisions about their health through the creation of true partnerships with healthcare professionals
• Working with local communities, schools, and health officials to ensure that community services and support systems for children and their families are flexible, accessible, and comprehensive.

“We all come from families. Families are big, small, extended, nuclear, multi-generational, with one parent, two parents, and grandparents. We live under one roof or many. A family can be as temporary as a few weeks, as permanent as forever. We become part of a family by birth, adoption, marriage, or from a desire for mutual support. As family members, we nurture, protect, and influence each other. Families are dynamic and are cultures unto themselves, with different values and unique ways of realizing dreams.  Together, our families become the source of our rich cultural heritage and spiritual diversity. Each family has strengths and qualities that flow from individual members and from the family as a unit. Our families create neighborhoods, communities, states, and nations.”

(Developed and adopted by the Young Children’s Continuum of the New Mexico State Legislature - 6/20/90)

Patient-and-Family Centered Care …“a journey, not a destination”