SCOTTSDALE, Ariz.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Iora Health and the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) Patient and Family Experience Team and Outpatient Clinical Service Leadership were named the winners of the third annual John Q. Sherman Award for Excellence in Patient Engagement at the National Patient Safety Foundation’s (NPSF) 18^th Annual Patient Safety Congress.

Iora Health & Children's Hospital of Philadelphia named 2016 #JQSAward winners @NPSF Congress. #patientengagement

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The honor was conferred by Taylor Healthcare and NPSF’s Lucian Leape Institute on behalf of EngagingPatients.org, the online community that sponsors the award. The Sherman Award recognizes innovative programs that are improving care and outcomes through patient and family engagement.

Iora Health was recognized for a transformative approach to patient care that focused on building a deeply engaging new model of high impact relationship-centered care with a specific patient population—Dartmouth College employees. The program restructured Iora’s financing model, assigned personal health coaches to each patient and transformed their business and staffing model to truly address patient needs and desires. As a result, the team: increased clinical quality; reduced use of expensive medical services (including hospitalizations and emergency department visits); and enhanced the quality of patients’ care.

CHOP’s nomination focused on the creation of a new ambulatory care building, called the Buerger Center for Advanced Pediatric Care. A significant portion of the population visiting the Buerger Center are diagnosed and treated for Autism Spectrum Disorder. To ensure the hospital was addressing the unique needs of these children, CHOP’s Patient and Family Experience Team and Outpatient Clinical Service Leadership actively involved patients and families from inception to completion in the design, planning, patient flow layout and construction of the Center.

“Our panel of judges was impressed and inspired by the work at Iora Health and the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia,” said Mark O’Leary, president of Taylor Healthcare. “We are pleased to see a deepening commitment by organizations throughout the country to incorporate patient and family voices in the development of care.

“Each winner changed the way they communicate with their patients and families and are tailoring care to their needs to build stronger relationships—resulting in improved experience and outcomes. These are the kinds of concrete changes that we believe will engage and empower patients and ultimately transform healthcare.”

In addition to the winners, judges also named three finalists who are making significant progress in engaging patients and families. They include Virginia Mason Medical Center of Seattle, WA; Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia’s Patient and Family Experience and Nursing Leadership teams; and Signature Healthcare Brockton Hospital of Brockton, MA.

Nominations were evaluated on their success in advancing patient engagement and driving results, sustainability, potential for replication, effectiveness in communicating and collaborating with stakeholders and inspirational value.

“The National Patient Safety Foundation and the NPSF Lucian Leape Institute consider patient and family engagement to be critical to the delivery of safe care,” said Tejal K. Gandhi, MD, MPH, CPPS, president and CEO of NPSF and president of the Institute. “The John Q. Sherman Award brings much-deserved recognition to those who are succeeding in this area and provides a channel for spreading their success to other organizations.”

During the coming months, EngagingPatients.org will feature the winners and finalists as guest bloggers. Full details of the winner and finalist initiatives are at www.engagingpatients.org.

About EngagingPatients.org

Launched in June 2013, EngagingPatients.org is an online community dedicated to improving the patient and family experience, the quality of care and improving outcomes by enhancing communication between patients, their advocates and their providers. The John Q. Sherman Award was created to recognize innovative programs and approaches increasing patient and family engagement and delivering better, safer care and outcomes.

About the National Patient Safety Foundation

The National Patient Safety Foundation’s vision is to create a world where patients and those who care for them are free from harm. A central voice for patient safety since 1997, NPSF partners with patients and families, the health care community, and key stakeholders to advance patient safety and health care workforce safety and disseminate strategies to prevent harm. NPSF is an independent, not-for-profit 501(c)(3) organization. The NPSF Lucian Leape Institute, established in 2007, is charged with defining strategic paths and calls to action for the field of patient safety, offering vision and context for the many efforts under way within health care, and providing the leverage necessary for system-level change.

About Taylor Healthcare

Taylor Healthcare, a part of Taylor Communications, Inc., is a marketing and communications company serving the healthcare industry with a broad spectrum of tangible and digital solutions primarily in the acute, long-term care and payer markets. We help our customers standardize and manage communications across the continuum of care, enabling them to engage the right person with the right information at the right time to influence behavior and achieve desired outcomes.