One Multidisciplinary Cleft and Craniofacial Team’s Experience in Shifting to Family-Centered Care

Family-centered care is a high-priority focus area in health care and is associated with increased family satisfaction and quality of life, better health outcomes and family follow-up, decreased burden of care, and improved efficiency of resource utilization. Motivated by our aim to improve clinic efficiency and patient retention, our multidisciplinary cleft palate and craniofacial center has been undergoing a complex family-centered reorganization over the past 3 years. We seek to share our experience in hope the information will be a useful starting point to other teams in structuring their own family-centered improvements. We suggest the following stepwise method to achieve a more family-centered process: (1) gathering preintervention data, (2) brainstorming challenges with stakeholders, (3) brainstorming solutions with stakeholders, (4) implementation, (5) follow-up and troubleshooting, (6) further implementation, and (7) gathering postintervention data. Additionally, we found the use of institutional resources added substantial value to our efforts.