Your Role in Your Child's Healthcare

What families can do to help

You know your child best, and we value your input into your child's care. As a valued member of our healthcare team, there are simple things you can do to help us to protect your child's safety:

• Speak up if you have questions!
• Ask us if we've cleaned our hands. We welcome your reminder to do so.
• Understand our visitation guidelines so we can all ensure safety and a healing environment for our patients, families and caregivers.
• Keep your child's vaccinations up-to-date.
• Ask your doctor or nurse about your child's care, medications or condition.
• Learn more about The Family Advisory Council.
• Learn more about preventing medical errors (.pdf) from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Not sure if you should say anything?

Do you wonder when and how to let someone know about patient safety issues like hand washing, changes in your child’s medical condition, patient identification, falls or bed sores? Download our tips for when to speak up (.pdf).

Si usted tenga algunas preguntas sobre los asuntos de la seguridad del paciente, consulte a nuestra guía de consejos que delinea cuando debe decir lo que piensa (.pdf).

The importance of transparency and family partnership

Transparency and family engagement have been essential to our success in improving safety and quality at Children’s Hospital Colorado. In addition to posting our results on the internal website for employees to review, we also publish our preventable harm data here on this public website and in numerous places around the hospital.

Target Zero is a hospital-based program focused on eliminating all types of serious safety events and preventable harm. We make the program visible with white boards in our inpatient areas and regularly bring a safety buggy around the hospital to engage staff and families in the effort.

Family partners also serve on our hospital acquired condition (HAC) improvement teams, on our steering committee and even in training sessions with staff. We attribute so much of our success in keeping kids safe to family involvement and awareness.