Patients & Families

“Our practice is a safe haven for us.” – Donna Wolf, Parent Partner

A Medical Home fosters partnerships with patients and their families in a trusting, compassionate and respectful manner. Family and patient involvement and feedback is critical to the implementation and growth of any medical home.

A medical home practice:

– Encourages communication and respect between families and practice staff
– Respects a family’s cultural, religious, and personal preferences for treatment
– Recognizes families as the center of strength and support for children
– Helps you plan your child’s care, including transition to adult care
– Connects you with community resources that benefit your family

Parent Partners

Parent Partners are a vital part of the medical home team. They offer providers a window into the patient and family’s experience at a pediatric practice, and can help improve services for patients with and without special healthcare needs. One of PA MHI’s pediatricians said it best:

“Parent Partners have revolutionized our practice. They provide an insight that is sometimes lost in everyday goings-on in the practice. They have brought in resources and they have become mentors to each other. Some of our Parent Partners are now advocates in the community.” (Ray Hubbard, MD, Reading)

Practices that participate in PA MHP are encouraged to foster parent partner groups that meet regularly to advise practice staff and leadership on improvement strategies. Established Parent Partner groups sometimes decide to take on improvement projects with minimal assistance from the practice. For example, Parent Partner groups have:
– Composed a letter of support that could be utilized by the practice when parents have a child who is newly diagnosed with a special health care need.
– Sent a letter to hospital network administrators, explaining the positive impact that their practice’s care coordinator had made in the lives of their families.
– Written articles for their practice’s newsletter.
– Made their phone or email contact information directly available to other parents in the practice to provide peer-to-peer support.