At Riley Hospital for Children at Indiana University Health, we will take excellent care of you and your child. We understand that families are an important part of healing. You are the expert about your child. You are a valuable part of the healthcare team. Together we can achieve the best patient outcomes. The partnership between families and health care providers is the foundation of our philosophy of care. At Riley, we practice patient and family centered care.

Working with families as partners in the care of their loved-ones is often referred to as family-centered care. It is also known as Patient and Family Centered Care or Relationship Centered Care.  Riley Hospital for Children at IU Health was among the first children’s hospitals to practice family-centered care. The key elements of family-centered care are:

• Recognizing that the family is the constant in the child's life
• Sharing with families, on a continuing and supportive basis, complete and unbiased information
• Facilitating family/professional collaboration at all levels of the system
• Honoring the racial, ethnic, cultural, spiritual, and socioeconomic diversity of families
• Recognizing family strengths and respecting different ways of coping
• Encouraging family-to-family support
• Understanding and incorporating the developmental needs of infants, children and adolescents into the delivery system
• Implementing policies and programs that provide emotional and financial support
• Designing accessible service systems that are flexible, culturally competent and responsive to family-identified needs

To learn more about family-centered care and how you can get involved as a family member, please contact  the Coordinator for Family Centered Care at rileyfamilies@iuhealth.org.