Engaging Patients and Families in Child Health Care Transformation
Children and families require a child health care system that serves their unique needs and supports opportunities for life-long health and well-being. The current system, however, fails too many children, especially Black, Indigenous, Latino, and other children of color. This session focused on key takeaways from the Accelerating Child Health Transformation (ACHT) initiative, funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, which uplifts the importance of authentically engaging families impacted by racist systems to support health care providers to co-identify opportunities to transform their culture, practices, and policies to deliver quality, family-centered care. During this session, Hala Durrah, Patient Family Engagement Consultant who serves as the Family Advisory Board lead for the ACHT project, and Hannah Gears, Senior Program Officer at the Center for Health Care Strategies, explored lessons learned related to building relationships between family advisors and project leadership and compensation for patients and families who provide their expertise. Then, Elizabeth Castro, a representative from a pediatric site from the ACHT learning collaborative, and Jennifer Daniels, a family advisor engaged in co-creating a pilot project, shared their journey to assess and improve family engagement efforts.