Patient and Family-Centered Care

Caring for children and their families forms the core of everything we do at Johns Hopkins Children’s Center. Why? For many reasons. Research shows that when parents are included as part of the hospital’s care team, for example, they feel informed and empowered, and are better prepared to care for their child during and after the hospital stay. Also, mining the experience and knowledge of family members bolsters the health care encounter — all of which leads to better health outcomes for patients.

That’s why the Children’s Center continues to strengthen its partnership with parents in the care of their children and seeks to create a culture that not only invites but also encourages family participation. Founded in 2007, our Pediatric Family Advisory Council works closely with care providers and hospital staff members to create a patient- and family-centered experience.

Our Mission and Vision

The mission of Johns Hopkins Children’s Center is to provide patient- and family-centered care in a diverse and inclusive environment, to be a leader in innovative research that leads to prevention and effective treatment of childhood diseases, and to train the next generation of leaders in pediatric medicine.

By promoting a culture of patient- and family-centered care at the Children’s Center, and by providing resources and guidance to strengthen collaboration, communication and mutual respect between the health care team, patients and their families, the members of the Family Advisory Council believe the highest quality outcomes possible can be achieved.

Our Core Values

In the early days of developing an innovative new patient- and family-centered care initiative, we determined that its foundation needed core values or pillars from which we could build and grow activities and programs. In each new initiative, we try to incorporate these values.

Dignity and Respect: We believe that an essential component of patient- and family-centered care is listening to and honoring patients’ and families’ perspectives and choices. Therefore, we constantly strive to incorporate patient and family knowledge, values, beliefs and cultural background into the planning and delivery of care.
Information Sharing: Only through an authentic and transparent dialogue can patients and families effectively participate in care and decision-making. Therefore, we believe health care practitioners should communicate and share complete and unbiased information with patients and families in ways that are affirming and useful.
Participation: We encourage patients and families to participate in care and decision-making at the level they choose.
Collaboration: We invite patients, families, health care practitioners and hospital leaders to collaborate in policy and program development and implementation, and evaluation of programs ranging from health care facility design to professional education, as well the delivery of care.

*Adopted from the Institute for Patient- and Family-Centered Care.