04/01/2026
Celebrating 10 Years of Impact at the Patient Advisors Network 🎉
Ten years ago, on April Fools’ Day 2016, the Patient Advisors Network (PAN) officially incorporated — our birthday, even if the world didn’t meet us until January 2017 when our website launched. I’ve always felt that April Fools’ Day suits us perfectly.
Our Community is full of people working hard to bring big and small changes to healthcare – and every positive change moves the needle to better healthcare for all.
Over these last 10 years, we have grown in numbers, but not just within PAN. Our impact is being felt, though we still battle tokenism and a lack of understanding of our value in making change. As an independent organization – not a patient organization in the usual sense but one of patients and caregivers who work collaboratively within the system, PAN remains unique. Our independence, valued collective wisdom, has led more and more healthcare organizations to choose to augment their own patient partner engagements with PAN collaborations for larger-scale projects.
This is leading PAN – and that’s all of you – to have impacts on these collaborations.
The PAN project teams are drawn from the Community. Those team members read and sometimes post on the Forum, talk with P/CPs colleagues both on projects and through the PAN webinars, and so informally gather a range of perspectives. Some projects involve reaching out to the Community through surveys and focus groups for a more formal gathering of diverse experiences. For all of that participation, we thank you.
Warmly,
Alies Maybee, Chair & PAN Board of Directors
