Join ACCP on Sunday, October 23, during the 2016 ACCP Annual Meeting Opening General Session for the keynote address, “Patient and Family-Centered Health Care: What It REALLY Is and Why It REALLY Matters!” Christine Bechtel, M.A., president and CEO of Bechtel Health Advisory Group, Washington, D.C., and Hala Durrah, family caregiver and patient- and family-centered care advocate, will serve as the 2016 Annual Meeting keynote speakers.

During the keynote address, Bechtel and Durrah will provide insight into the look and feel of patient-centered care from the perspectives of patients, families, and caregivers. The keynote address will include discussions on how a patient- and family-centered approach to care improves clinical and humanistic outcomes and will provide a review of the current policy and advocacy opportunities and challenges that must be addressed to help clinicians and health systems achieve an enhanced patient-centered focus in clinical practice and business operations.

Bechtel has spent her career shaping public policy and advancing better health and care for patients and families. She has been a consumer advocate for more than a decade and worked for consumer organizations such as the National Partnership for Women & Families and AARP. Her work has focused on areas such as health information technology, quality measurement and improvement, patient and family engagement, and models of care such as the medical homes and accountable care organizations. She currently coordinates the Get My Health Data Campaign, an initiative based on public policies she helped create that assists U.S. consumers in requesting and receiving their health data in electronic formats.

Bechtel’s experience includes designing and overseeing community-based quality improvement initiatives, leading membership and government relations divisions for national organizations, managing operations, and conducting public opinion polling, as well as legislative experience in the U.S. Senate. She was also the vice president of the National Partnership for 5 years. On behalf of the National Partnership, Bechtel is a co-chair of the Patients, Families and Consumers Center at the Patient-Centered Primary Care Collaborative and chair of the Consumer Workgroup of the Health IT Policy Committee, a federal advisory committee that makes recommendations to the U.S. government.

Durrah’s current work in patient- and family-centered care stems from her experiences as the mother of a chronically ill child who has undergone two liver transplants and a bone marrow transplant. She began her journey in patient- and family-centered care as a volunteer patient/family adviser at Anne Arundel Medical Center (AAMC) in Annapolis, Maryland. From 2012 to 2015, Durrah took on various roles at AAMC, providing education to staff on patient- and family-centered care issues and serving on leadership committees focused on hospital-wide patient- and family-centered care strategic goals through Lean process improvement. She was a founding member and chair of the first women’s and children’s patient and family advisory council and assisted in developing the first adviser-nurse shadowing program. Durrah has been a speaker at conferences for organizations such as the Institute for Patient- and Family-Centered Care, the Maryland Hospital Association, the Healthcare Association of New York State, and the Virginia Hospital & Healthcare Association.

You will not want to miss this thought-provoking kickoff to the 2016 ACCP Annual Meeting, beginning at 8:00 a.m. on Sunday, October 23, 2016.