Families at the Center
Dear Friends,
Ten years ago, Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center adopted a vision statement that said simply:
We will be the leader in improving child health.
That statement defined our aspirations, not our reality. The path to achieving our vision has taken us on a transformational quest for better outcomes for children and better experiences and value for families.
In our recent annual reports, we've focused on aspects of the quest: how we're harnessing information technology to improve care, integrating research and patient care to find new ways to prevent and treat childhood disease and strengthening clinical services.
This year our report focuses on another aspect of transformational change at Cincinnati Children's: our achievements in family-centered care.
When we set out to create a more family-centered organization, we could not have predicted the profound changes that would result. At first our goals were modest. We hoped to provide a more sensitive, supportive environment for families. We thought we could learn to do a better job of teaching parents. Today we've learned that parents can teach us how to do a better job of caring for their children and how to design health care systems that work well for patients, families and staff, alike.
We've learned that family-centered care is not just about being more compassionate or more accommodating; it is an essential link to quality.
Our commitment to family-centered care is earning national recognition. In 2006, Cincinnati Children's was honored to win one of the most prestigious awards in health care, the American Hospital Association-McKesson Quest for Quality Prize.TM Among the quality improvements that most impressed the selection committee was the family-centered culture we're creating.
Delighted as we are by the progress of our quality initiative, we know there's much more to be done. Quality, after all, is a quest, an ongoing pursuit, not a destination. In 2007 we will continue the journey, inspired and guided by the children and families we serve. We will focus intensely on new initiatives that improve patient safety. We also will open our new research building, which will offer opportunities for future accomplishments in research.
And we will begin construction of a facility in Liberty Township that will serve families in the rapidly growing suburbs north of Cincinnati. This new campus will offer a wider array of services than do our other Cincinnati Children's outpatient centers. There will be a full emergency department, eight operating rooms and a short-stay unit. In keeping with our commitment to family-centered care, parents on our Family Advisory Council will help us plan the facility to assure that it is designed with the needs of children and families in mind.
We invite you to read on to learn more about how families are partnering with us every day to improve the quality of care for our most important asset — our children.
Sincerely,
