Becker's Clinical Quality & Infection Control

44 PATIENT AND CAREGIVER EXPERIENCE Oregon hospital rolls out emergency plan with more than 500 workers on leave in April By Kelly Gooch M ore than 500 Oregon State Hospital staff took leave in the first half of April for reasons related to the COVID-19 pandemic, prompting the Sa- lem-based psychiatric facility to roll out multiple initiatives to reduce workforce strain. From April 1-18, 539 workers used sick, vacation and oth- er leave, although some were back at work as of April 21, according to data shared with Becker's. This represents about 23 percent of the hospital's total workforce of more than 2,300, which includes nurses, contract staff and others in Salem and at the hospital's smaller satellite campus in Junction City. Employees have expressed concerns about staffing and the number of employees on leave, citing increasingly dangerous working conditions, exhaustion and low mo- rale, according to The Oregonian. "It's all been like sticking your finger in the holes in the dam," Kimberly Thoma, an Oregon State Hospital employ- ee and SEIU Local 503 union official, told the newspaper. "People are working double shifts, being mandated — they're working so many hours to try and cover this need." Hospital officials acknowledged concerns about staffing. They said leaders have been partnering with staff to ensure adequate staffing and have approached the issue from several angles with an emergency staffing plan. Efforts included redeploying staff to units with the most patient care needs. In April, the entire nursing leadership team began working on these units, hospital officials said. Several organizational improvement initiatives were de- layed, and attention was shifted to a unit-based treatment model so staff can focus on patient care and fill in for nurs- es who are on leave, the hospital said. Hiring and onboarding for relief positions were sped up, and hospital officials said they also hired as many contract agency nurses as possible and discussed the possible de- ployment of managers with its parent agency, the Oregon Health Authority. Managers were also talking with staff out on parental leave to discuss how to support employees, including possible shift accommodations, the hospital said. As of April 17, more than 180 workers were away from their jobs at the hospital because they or a family member are medically fragile — or they can't find child care, according to The Oregonian. Union members said they were concerned the hospital's emergency staffing plan has created a less safe environ- ment by putting workers with limited experience in pro- tecting patients and staff on units, the newspaper report- ed, citing a petition calling for administrators to address the growing staffing problem. In April, the hospital said it was monitoring the numbers daily and meeting with the AFSCME-RN and SEIU unions repre- senting its workers to collaborate on staffing strategies and solutions. n What hospital leaders can learn from 175,334 patient comments By Hannah Mitchell T here are only a few different themes that characterize a positive patient experience, yet there are a various mis- steps that can cause patient dissatisfaction, according to an April 2 study cited by Harvard Business Review. The study was conducted by Press Ganey, a healthcare orga- nization known for its patient satisfaction surveys. Press Ganey analyzed 175,334 patient comments collected through sur- veys at surgical units in a major teaching hospital between No- vember 2018 and March 2020. Positive comments were similar, with the most common posi- tive comment among happy patients being a sense of courte- sy and respect. Negative comments varied, with the most common sources of unhappiness being long wait times, noise complaints and chaos with the discharge process. The data suggest hospitals will need to be vigilant in tracking the source of unhappiness in their patients. To find sources of unhappiness in patients, the authors suggest using a mix of structured and more open-ended questions. For example, hospitals may ask patients to rate its cleanliness on a scale of one to five. Adding a comment sec- tion can allow hospitals to pinpoint specific issues like soiled bed linens or gowns. n

• Cover