Kelly Parent has a decade of experience leading patient and family engagement efforts that create implement, and evaluate partnerships across executive, clinical, education, facility design, quality and safety, and research ventures. In 2007, Kelly was hired as the first University of Michigan Health System (UMHS) Patient and Family Centered Care (PFCC) Program Manager.  There, she created and sustained a patient and family advisor program and coached teams to effectively engage patients and family members both at the point-of-care and at the institutional level. Currently, she is working as the PFCC Program Specialist for Quality and Safety creating a family-staff partnership model to reduce harm and readmissions.  Additionally, she is collaborating with the University of Michigan Medical School and U-M Inter-Professional Education steering committee as they grow their efforts to engage patients and families in admission, curriculum, quality and learning support processes.

Kelly is also the Program Specialist for Patient and Family Partnerships for the Institute for Patient- and Family-Centered Care (IPFCC) where she is serving as a consultant to hospitals, health systems and community organizations; functioning as seminar, webinar and conference faculty; and managing IPFCC’s online forum. Kelly’s passion for patient- and family-centered care was established following her daughter’s cancer diagnosis, which led her to serve as a volunteer family advisor and lobby Capitol Hill for increased funding for pediatric cancer research and health care programs for under-served children.