Serving on Healthcare Committees

CONSUMERS AND FAMILIES AS COLLEGUES

Adult healthcare consumers with chronic health conditions and disabilities and families of children and youth with special health care needs and disabilities have important experience and expertise they bring to the health care system that no one else has.  They know how the system really works, not how it was "designed" to work.  That expertise is a valuable resource that healthcare systems need to respect and utilize effectively.  

"Making patients and their families truly the force that drives everything else in health care is perhaps the most revolutionary tool of all.  It's importance is evident at the system level, but it comes though even more strongly at the personal level." 

                                                Dr. Don Berwick

www.familycenteredcare.org/tools/downloads.html