Booz Allen: Measuring What Matters

For more than 35 years, The Children’s Inn at NIH has offered families “A Place Like Home” during some of the most difficult journeys of their lives. Children, teens, and young adults arrive with their families to participate in groundbreaking clinical trials at the NIH Clinical Center – often far from home, facing daunting diagnoses, and carrying the heavy burdens of illness.

Booz Allen has been a proud corporate partner of The Inn for more than a decade. During that time, it has donated more than $1.65 million to The Inn through sponsorships of key events such as An Evening for Hope, Snowed Inn, and the Golf Innvitational. At the same time, Booz Allen employees have engaged with The Inn in a variety of meaningful ways, including serving family meals and volunteering time and resources to help operate fun and engaging programming for families.

“Booz Allen is proud of its long-standing support of The Children’s Inn’s mission-driven purpose of enabling transformational biomedical research, reducing the burden of illness, and making childhood possible,” said Booz Allen Senior Vice President and Children’s Inn Board Member Roman Salasznyk. “As an advanced technology company, we recognize the important role that The Inn plays in accelerating scientific discovery while improving health outcomes for children and families faced with debilitating and life-threatening illnesses. Our corporate culture emphasizes passionate service and meaningful engagement, and events like Family Dinners are where our core values come to life. Our people enthusiastically embrace these opportunities to support and interact meaningfully with the residents of The Inn.”

This year, Booz Allen’s partnership reached a new level, helping The Inn measure its impact with greater clarity than ever before. Its report, Measuring Impact of The Children’s Inn at NIH, confirms what families and staff have always known: The Inn does more than provide a place to stay. It reduces the burden of illness, makes childhood possible, and enables life-saving scientific discovery.

Booz Allen staffers serving dinner at The Inn

“The Inn has excelled in its mission over the last 35 years to provide a free “Place Like Home” to children and young adult patients and their families across the United States and the world,” said Salasznyk. “In an effort to quantitatively express this impact, The Inn asked us to analyze the clinical trial journey of families, patients, and clinicians to assess how the services that The Inn provides contribute to research and scientific discovery. For this project, Booz Allen facilitated various structured interviews with members of The Inn leadership and staff, Inn volunteers, patients and caregivers, and clinicians and medical staff; conducted a thematic analysis of research findings; and developed actionable recommendations in a comprehensive report.”

Families interviewed for the study spoke of the ways The Inn lifts both visible and invisible burdens. Its location on the NIH campus eases the stress of daily appointments. Specialized isolation rooms allow immunocompromised children to avoid extended hospital stays while remaining safe and comfortable. Volunteers – whose service equals more than four full-time staff – create programs, coordinate meals, and walk The Inn’s therapy dog, ensuring families feel supported at every turn.

Parents expressed relief knowing their children are safe inside The Inn’s welcoming walls, giving them precious moments to rest or simply take a walk. One mother shared how a tutoring program lifted the enormous weight of managing her son’s disrupted education. Another patient marveled that when their family requested a shower chair at check-in, “someone was at the door within minutes.”

The Inn is a place where children are free to be kids, not patients. Arts and crafts, Bingo nights, puppet shows, and cooking classes balance the medical challenges of each day. Teens and young adults, through the Adolescent and Young Adult program, gain life skills, friendships, and encouragement to dream beyond illness. Families described The Inn as a “second home,” where children laughed, played, and made memories that might otherwise have been lost to treatment schedules.

International families spoke of the relief of seeing their culture and language reflected in meals, music, and even small notes of welcome written in their native tongue. One child, who dreaded long hospital days filled with tests, said they always looked forward to returning to The Inn because “there would be no more tears. It’s a happy, comforting place.”

Perhaps most striking, Booz Allen’s findings highlight how essential The Inn is to advancing medical research at NIH. Without The Inn, many clinical trials simply would not be possible. Families reported that without its support, half of them might not – or could not – participate. Clinicians confirmed that The Inn is a cornerstone of their ability to recruit and retain diverse participants, particularly for rare disease studies, long-term trials, and international patients.

One clinician put it simply: “The Inn is an equalizer for health disparities.” By removing financial, logistical, and emotional barriers, The Inn ensures children from all backgrounds can access cutting-edge treatments and that science itself can move forward.

Through its pro bono engagement, Booz Allen has given The Inn a powerful new tool: the ability to measure, document, and share its impact. Aside from confirming the success The Inn has had in fulfilling its mission, the report provides actionable recommendations, including expanding data collection, enhancing translation services, enriching programs, and strengthening communication with NIH clinicians. These steps will help The Inn not only continue its mission, but also demonstrate, in measurable ways, the profound difference it makes for families and for science.

For The Inn’s leadership, staff, and volunteers, the findings affirm years of dedication. For families, they validate the comfort and joy they feel when staying at The Inn. And for donors and partners, they provide tangible evidence that supporting The Inn is not just an act of generosity – it is an investment in children’s lives and in the future of medicine.

The Children’s Inn at NIH has always been a haven where burdens are lifted, childhood is cherished, and discoveries are made possible. With Booz Allen’s partnership, The Inn now has the tools to ensure this story is told with clarity and strength – for families, for donors, and for generations to come.