Giora Netzer, MD, MSCE, a nationally known advocate of family-centered health care, has been named Vice President of Patient Experience at the University of Maryland Medical Center’s (UMMC) Downtown and Midtown campuses.

For years, Netzer, an associate professor of medicine, epidemiology & public health at the University of Maryland School of Medicine and a UMMC pulmonary and critical care medicine specialist, has worked closely with teams throughout the medical center focused on enhancing patient care and the patient experience, while also publishing peer-reviewed journal articles, writing book chapters, editing a new book on family-centered health care and serving in leadership positions in national medical societies and patient advocacy groups.

“All these threads have converged: bedside care, research, patient advocacy, and work with the University of Maryland on initiatives to improve bedside care; all are coming together in this position,” says Netzer.

He sees the future of health care as “active engagement to improve health, in which we collaborate with patients and families and give them the tools to be active participants in their care.”

Netzer’s research explores the challenges families face in the hospital, and his work advocates active engagement to improve not only how patients and families feel about the care their loved one is receiving, but also to improve clinical outcomes as well.

Moreover, active engagement is critically important after the patient leaves the hospital. “There’s an entire life beyond what the doctors and nurses and other members of the health care team are part of. At that point, the continuing care and recovery is centered on patients and their families. It’s our duty to give them tools that will allow them to do the best they can for the greatest recovery following their hospitalizations.”

Tools already implemented include a “Get to Know Me Board” that patients and families use to tell the patient’s individual story to the hospital care team. On another front, in a pilot initiative, patients’ families are working with bedside professionals to help improve care and be active in the care of their loved one. Netzer hopes to expand that initiative in the future. Further, he says he is looking at ways to include volunteers from the community in the process.

Netzer says aside from his professional experience as a health care provider, he personally knows what it means to be at the bedside as a son, as a patient, and as a father. “That experience has profoundly transformed my belief in how health care should look, and my passion to work towards it.”