"The patient voice and experience is more rounded and their perspective is heard and listened to as care and treatment services are designed.
"They have influenced the single biggest investment in health since the merger of the Napier and Hastings hospitals, how it will function and what it will look like.
"The lessons learnt have been huge and the gains even bigger.
Their message to the HBDHB has been when you think you have done enough consultation with patients and their family and whanau, you probably haven't done enough."
Group chairwoman Deborah Grace said 18 months ago most were scared when sitting at the conference table with clinicians "let alone the dinner table".
"Way back then we were very wary of the enemy," she said.
They found themselves "united with a passion to improve the mental health service".
The fifth annual awards were held at the Napier War Memorial Conference Centre with entertainment provided by Kahurangi Dance Theatre, comedian Raybon Kan and singer-songwriter Anika Moa.
Businessman and patient-centred healthcare advocate Graeme Norton won the Hawke's Bay Health Sector Leadership Achievement Award.
He voluntarily chairs the Hawke's Bay Health Consumer Council, the Urgent Care Alliance and Hawke's Bay Diabetes leadership team and is a member of several other advisory bodies.
He was praised for keeping the patients' voice at the forefront of the DHB's sweeping Transform and Sustain programme.
The BAND Commitment to Quality Award was won by the Department of Corrections' Clinical Quality Team for a traumatic brain injury screening tool.
The Health Hawke's Bay Excellence in Provider Collaboration and Integration Award was won by HBDHB, Health Hawke's Bay and Asthma Hawke's Bay for improving awareness, diagnosis and early intervention of respiratory disease.
The Skyline Aviation's Excellence in Innovation Award went to the HBDHB Healthy Populations Smokefree Team for Six Smoke-free Best Practice Principles, principles now part of a national guideline.
The Hastings Health Centre/Totara Health Excellence in a Clinical Practice Award was won by the HBDHB Laboratory and Southern Community Laboratory for their histology service.
Hawke's Bay District Health Board Reducing Inequalities Award was won by Central Health for their Kura Tuatahi - Ki te Whakangao i nga Rangatira Mo Apopo (investing in tomorrow) programme.
The Buddle Findlay Team of the Year Award went to the HBDHB Child Development Service for balancing increased workload with high-level service delivery.
The health board's chairman Kevin Atkinson told Hawke's Bay Today the awards demonstrated a shift from poor engagement with health consumers "who really do understand the issues" to an engagement integral with health services.
