Becker's Hospital Review

24 PATIENT EXPERIENCE What millennials' lunch breaks reveal about their expectations for medical appointments By Andrea Park T he ultra-efficient workday lunch break is nothing new, but millen- nials have taken this efficiency to ever more "joyless, ruthless" levels, CityLab reported, highlighting the generation's tendency toward total optimization at the expense of human interaction. Patient experience officers and other hospital and health system leaders can learn quite a bit from the way that millennials have largely phased out the long, luxurious "power lunch" in favor of a 15-minute roundtrip to pick up a pricey, assembly line-made salad that they pre-ordered online and which they will eat while working at their desks. e cohort not only demands efficiency in all unavoidable encounters — eating lunch, undergoing an annual physical — but takes no issue with doing so with minimal human interaction, nor with having to pay a premium for the convenience. It would seem, then, that the ideal medical appointment for millennials would involve online scheduling, check-in at a faceless kiosk, a straightforward and bare-bones clinical interaction and, finally, the ability to pay online, ideally through a specialized app — and all of this in 20 minutes or less. is attitude toward relentless optimization may eliminate "the delicious vagaries of consumer choice," per CityLab, but it leaves millennials with more time to spend on the activities they value most and, by fitting around their existing schedules and values, does more than traditional healthcare delivery methods to ensure they continuously and regularly engage with their health. n Emotional support dog creates dilemma for Texas medical group By Mackenzie Bean A Houston-based medical group is adopting a new policy regarding emo- tional support dogs after a patient brought hers to a clinic Nov. 19 and was asked to leave, reported KHOU 11. Kandi Cox brought her 82-pound emotional support dog, Bentley, to a fol- low-up appointment at Millennium Physicians' oncology and rheumatology office in Kingwood, Texas. Ms. Cox, who was recently diagnosed with cervical cancer, said she was shocked when a physician asked her to leave the facility because of her dog. The Americans with Disabilities Act generally requires hospitals to allow pa- tients with a disability to keep a service animal with them in the facility. How- ever, hospitals can ask animals to leave if they're near immunocompromised patients. Furthermore, the ADA does not grant emotional support animals the same access rights as service dogs. The physician who asked Ms. Cox to leave thought it was in the best interest of the practice's patients, many of whom were undergoing chemotherapy and were immunocompromised, according to Rachel Taylor, a practice administra- tor for Millennium Physicians. "We were, however, able to accommodate this patient later in the day, with her animal, in one of our other clinic offices, where the chemotherapy area is more remote," she said in a statement to KHOU 11. "We hope that with the adoption and dissemination of a written policy in this regard, no patient will ever be inconvenienced or embarrassed while visiting our clinics." n Patient portals lack user-friendly guidance, study finds By Andrea Park M any patient portals fail to provide thorough, easy-to-follow instructions for using the technology, preventing the portals from achieving their full potential to improve care, according to a report from Regenstrief Institute and Indiana University School of Medicine in Indianapolis. An analysis of 200 U.S. hospitals found that nearly 90 percent offer patient portals. Of the two-thirds of portals that include secure messaging systems, more than half lack specific instructions about how those systems can and should be used. According to the study, the majority of portal instructions focused on operational and legal information, rather than descriptions of instances best suited to portal use. Furthermore, many of the instructions that did relate to secure messaging were vague and unhelpful, such as "send and receive messages from staff," with- out describing the appropriate content of those messages. "This research indicates there is room for improvement when it comes to educating patients on the portals, especially related to secure messaging. The guidance that exists includes a lot of 'don'ts,' but not very many 'dos.' This makes it difficult for patients to properly utilize and benefit from the service," said lead author Joy Lee, PhD, a Regenstrief research scientist. Dr. Lee added, "Hospitals and healthcare systems have invested a lot of money in patient portals, but the investment won't pay off for them or the people they provide care for if patients are confused about how to use the portals or don't understand how to get the most out of the tool." n

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