Becker's Clinical Quality & Infection Control

32 PATIENT EXPERIENCE Music as effective as sedatives in lowering patient anxiety before anesthesia procedures By Anuja Vaidya M usic can be an effective tool for reducing anxiety in patients before receiving anesthesia, on par with using sedatives, according to a study pub- lished in Regional Anesthesia & Pain Medicine. Researchers from Philadelphia-based Penn Medicine randomly assigned 157 patients to receive either one of the following two options three minutes before undergo- ing the peripheral nerve block anesthesia procedure: an injection of the sedative midazolam or a pair of noise-can- celing headphones playing an eight-minute song de- signed to calm listeners. They recorded patients' anxiety levels before and after each option. They found that changes in anxiety levels were similar between the two groups. "Our findings show that there are drug-free alternatives to help calm a patient before certain procedures, like nerve blocks," said Veena Graff, MD, the study's lead author and an assistant professor of clinical anesthesiology and critical care at Penn Medicine. "We've rolled out a new process at our ambulatory surgical center to provide patients who want to listen to music with access to dispos- able headphones." n Meet Dr. Lisa Allen, patient experience chief at Johns Hopkins Medicine By Anuja Vaidya L isa Allen, PhD, is the chief patient expe- rience officer of Baltimore-based Johns Hopkins Medicine. Here, she discusses key strategies for engaging patients and their families, finding the time to train providers and the organization's patient experience improvement goals. Editor's note: Responses were lightly edited for length and clarity. Question: What is the No. 1 chal- lenge facing healthcare chief patient experience officers? How do you plan to tackle it? Dr. Lisa Allen: Competing initiatives. ere are many demands on healthcare providers' time, and fitting in training, education and patient journey mapping can be challeng- ing. e best way to tackle this is to link the work. If we are teaching something new to registration staff, then we marry this with customer service training. When doing grand rounds, we add time for a patient story, or a short snippet on a simple strategy for great communication and de-escalation tools. Q: What are some of the untapped opportunities to improve patient experience today? LA: First and foremost is engaging our patients and families in helping us improve. We can do this through patient and family advisory councils, comments on surveys and letters, design thinking and rounding. Hearing the voice of our patients is key. Second is to find those providers and staff members who are stellar at connecting with our patients and families. ey become our champions and role models and provide invaluable insights. ird is to use perfor- mance improvement methodologies to set goals; improve, measure, reassess if needed; and ensure accountability for improvement. Q: What are some key goals you hope to accomplish before the end of the year? LA: One of our six strategic priorities is 'mak- ing Hopkins easy.' We are implementing an app to help with wayfinding, [helping patients navigate] from home to parking space to appointment. Our organization is large and complex. e stress of going to a medical ap- pointment is reduced if wayfinding is simple. We also are focusing on improving our adop- tion of bedside electronic tablets for patient engagement. is tool allows our patients to see their inpatient medications, vital signs and educational materials, to name a few, without leaving their room. Another key goal is increasing participation of a wider demographic of patients and fam- ilies on our councils and committees, and through shorter targeted electronic patient experience surveys. Q: How do you see the role of the chief patient experience officer evolving in the healthcare field over the next five years? LA: I believe all staff members and providers must see themselves as experience officers. e chief patient experience officer will continue to be an influence leader, bring for- ward best practices, and be a connector and user of performance improvement tools and techniques. e chief patient experience of- ficer makes sure the voice of the patient and family is heard and acted upon throughout all levels of the organization. Just as a great sports team needs a coach, the chief patient experience officer will lead a team of coaches to teach, share data and provide feedback for improvement. is role, like others in the C-suite, ensures that we do not lose focus of our reason for being — our patients and their loved ones. n

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