Family Advisor Network (FAN)

What is the Family Advisor Network (FAN)?

The Family Advisor Network (FAN) is a positive, solutions-oriented collaborative of current and former Children’s Health patients and their families who use their unique perspectives and experiences to drive meaningful improvements in our patients’ experience. Our ongoing success as a leading pediatric health care system, relies heavily on understanding the experiences of our patient families, and FAN deeply energizes and informs that understanding

What do family advisors do?

Family advisors help ensure the patient voice is at the center of everything we do by providing feedback, in a safe space, that enables us to:

Identify issues that need to be addressed
Improve existing processes
Generate new ideas concerning every aspect of the patient experience, including care delivery, services, and amenities
Assist in planning renovations of existing facilities and the design of new facilities
Provide a forum to openly discuss concerns and suggestions
Evaluate the quality of care provided
Establish a robust dialogue between patient families and care providers
Advocate for our consistent, meaningful engagement with patient families

FAN member responsibilities

Actively participating in meetings and other activities to help achieve the boards’ purpose.
Sharing personal experiences, stories, observations, and opinions about Children’s Health.
Reaching out and listening to other patients, families, staff, and community members regarding their experiences, stories, observations and opinions about Children’s Health.
A commitment to improving care for all patients and family members.
Respect for the collaborative process and for forums to discuss issues, a willingness to listen to and consider differing viewpoints, a willingness to share ideas about improvements, and a commitment to encourage other council members to do the likewise.
Sharing both positive and negative experiences in a constructive way.
Working effectively with other family advisors as well as with other Children’s Health patients and families in identifying, promoting, and ensuring a focus on creating the ideal patient experience.
Acting as a change agent to help achieve quality goals, including patient and family experience goals, helping make them the standard throughout Children’s Health.
Reviewing materials provided prior to meetings, so that each person is prepared to actively ask questions, contribute ideas and provide input during a meeting.
Monitoring your area of expertise or clinical designation and bringing status reports, concerns and needs to the full committee.
Understanding that the goal for decision-making will be consensus. If consensus cannot be reached, though, decisions will be made by a majority and all members agree to support the approved decision.
Maintaining confidentiality of meeting content.

Family advisor boards

FAN includes four Family Advisor Boards: the Dallas Campus, Plano Campus, Staff, and Youth and Young Adult Boards. These boards consist of patients, their siblings and the caregivers of children who have received care at a Children’s Health facility in the past three years. The FAB’s focus on operations, planning and design, patient experience, and technology and innovation.

Youth and young adult board

As part of FAN, the Youth and Young Adult Board (YAB) enables patients, former patients, and their siblings ages 13-21 to share valuable feedback and insights that help ensure Children’s Health delivers the highest-quality, most compassionate care to the patients and families we serve.

Family advisor councils

FAN includes six Family Advisor Councils. These councils focus on the following departments: Cardiology, Hematology-Oncology, Sickle Cell Disease, Cystic Fibrosis, Foster Care, and Gastrointestinal. These councils’- partner with team members from each area to focus on operations, planning and design, patient experience, and technology and innovation.

FAN insiders

FAN Insiders is a virtual extension of FAN that enables participants to share their voice, experiences, and feedback, help drive meaningful changes at Children’s Health, and help us continue to make life better for children.

FAN insiders – Español

FAN Insiders Español is a virtual group that enables families whose primary language is Spanish to share their voice, experiences, and feedback, to help drive meaningful changes at Children’s Health, and helping us continue to make life better for children.

Hospital committees

Committees within our facilities often ask FAN members to provide the family perspective on new programs, projects, policies, or processes.

Participate in short-term projects and focus groups

Family Advisors can participate in focus groups and short-term projects, providing feedback or suggesting solutions regarding a specific project.

Story sharing

Family Advisors share details about their medical care journey with teams across our facilities to help team our team members understand how their work makes a difference for families.

Next steps

The acronym is no accident – we think of this as a Children’s Health FAN club. If you have reviewed the membership responsibilities and are ready to join the FAN club, please click one of the links below to apply.

Become a FAN (Ages 18+)

Become a FAN (Ages 13-17)

Unase al Club de FANs (esades 18+)