June 24, 2011
Citing her significant contributions to family-centered care initiatives at the Children’s Center, Director of Pediatric Nursing Shelley Baranowski presented parent advisor Anne Wills the Loretta Wall Excellence in Patient- and Family-Centered Care Award.
If there’s strength in numbers, family-centered care initiatives like family rounds and meals on demand at the Johns Hopkins Children’s Center should be moving at an even faster rate. That’s because the Family Advisory Council (FAC), which helps facilitate such family-friendly programs at Hopkins Children’s, added 22 new parent and staff members in June, doubling its total membership.
“This is a great opportunity,” stressed Director of Pediatrics George Dover at the FAC’s June meeting. “Now we have even more eyes, ears and feelings of parents helping us make our medicine that much better.”
Director of Pediatric Nursing Shelley Baranowski added that what started out as a small informal steering committee in 2007 has transformed into a substantive and self-sustaining advisory committee influencing almost every aspect of hospital operations, as well as programs planned for the new Charlotte R. Bloomberg Children’s Center opening in April 2012.
“You’ve participated in initiatives, among others, related to patient education, nursing performance and our new building,” Baranowski said. “Now these new members add yet another dimension to the FAC’s ability to help create a caring environment for our patients.”
“Our new building,” Dover added, “is a product of our increased awareness of what we’ve heard from parents.”
Also at the meeting, former FAC co-chair Anne Wills was honored as the recipient of the Loretta Wall Excellence in Patient- and Family-Centered Care Award. The award is named after former Director of Social Work Loretta Wall, who led the steering committee and its efforts to strengthen patient- and family-centered care at Hopkins Children’s beginning in 2007. Learn more