When the Philippine Children’s Medical Center (PCMC) started to explore ways to enhance its strategic goals to respond to emerging challenges in pediatric care, it was coincidental that the Institute for Solidarity in Asia (ISA) sent an invitation to PCMC in one of its public fora. This was the start of an inspiring journey.

Learning the journey through ISA to achieve breakthrough results in public governance, PCMC decided to adopt this path to realize its vision to lead the nation’s foremost pediatric and maternal care institution, through research, training, and service delivery, for PCMC to live out its mandated Charter.

Certainly, the aspiration to deliver breakthrough performance was born out of PCMC’s desire to move outside of its comfort zone. Witnessing how children and mothers die of catastrophic diseases due to weak gate-keeping, fragmented health care systems, PCMC no longer contents itself with just receiving and managing difficult cases. It now asserts leadership in addressing health care delivery gaps to prevent well children and mothers from getting sick, and prevent the sick from getting sicker by improving health seeking behaviors.

This aspiration of PCMC is to generate multi-sectoral partnerships with LGUs, peoples’ organizations, private entities, corporate/business bodies, international organizations and  volunteer groups. Doing this, we tap a huge potential for growth, for every stakeholder on the shift of resource priorities and assistance from rigid and rule-driven decision making to a make room for more flexibility and timely, need-of-the moment, most responsive care to all. The presence of   considerable constraints may loom in the horizon, from the national and local level and even from within the PCMC community itself. Thus, there is a need for constant dialogues from sectors,  communicating  to them the shift of PCMC’s strategic position within the next 5 to 10 years.