Becker's Clinical Quality & Infection Control

25 PATIENT & CAREGIVER EXPERIENCE MUSC Health inks digital front door collab to ease patient scheduling, intake By Katie Adams C harleston-based Medical University of South Carolina on Dec. 1, 2021 began a partnership with healthcare automation company Notable to improve the digital patient experience. Notable deploys bots that perform tasks in the EHR, potentially saving MUSC Health caretakers more than 700 hours of administrative work per year, the com- pany and MUSC Health stated in a news release. MUSC Health also will use the platform to improve patients' digital interactions, as well as automate scheduling, registration and clinical intake workflows. "Notable enables us to create efficient, reliable and timely digital experiences for our patients at every step in their care journey," said Caroline Brown, MUSC Health's chief external affairs officer. "By investing in and deploying technology that many other industries use, we can improve upon our patient and fami- ly-centered care delivery model and expand access to high quality, equitable care. We can also decrease duplicative workflows and time-consuming tasks for our care team members." n Mayo urges respect for healthcare workers amid increase in patient hostility By Kelly Gooch M ayo Clinic Health System in La Crosse, Wis., which serves Wisconsin, Minnesota and Iowa, is asking for respect and pa- tience from patients amid an increase in hostility toward healthcare workers, according to the La Crosse Tribune. Across the country, hospitals and health systems have seen increased incidents of workplace violence and harassment against healthcare work- ers. Mayo Clinic Health System workers in La Crosse, Wis., are no exception. LeighAnn Gooden, DO, an emergen- cy medicine physician in La Crosse, told the Tribune patients and health- care workers should show respect toward each other, but sometimes expectations or demands for a patient or their loved one "don't necessarily align with appropriate medical care or what might be in the[ir] best interest," which can at times result in hostility. Renee Groth, MSN, RN, Mayo nurse manager, also spoke about the issue, telling the newspaper that patients are "increasingly becoming a little bit more demanding," and sometimes they "cross the line, where they start getting a little bit more violent in how they speak with us and how they ask what they would like." This could include swearing, derogatory com- ments or yelling. Dr. Gooden and Ms. Groth said hostility, whether physical, verbal, nonverbal or emotional, can cause healthcare workers to lose joy and motivation to do their work. The increase in hostility against healthcare workers comes during especially challenging times as many hospitals grapple with significant staff- ing strain related to the pandemic. Lawmakers in some states are already acting to better protect healthcare workers through legislation. This includes Wisconsin, where lawmakers are introducing a bill to make battery and threats of violence against health- care workers a felony, according to the Wisconsin State Journal. n Natural light could be key to patient-centered hospital design By Katie Adams A new trend in patient-centered hospital design centers on mak- ing spaces more welcoming and comfortable through natural light, Wired reported Jan. 5. ere have been numerous studies in recent years — including one on the effect of sunlight on medication use and another on how hospital design affects patients' pain levels — demonstrating that exposure to natural light and the outdoors can help alleviate pain and stress, according to the report. "e ambient environment influences our senses," Rana Zadeh, PhD, co-director and co-founder of the Health Design Innova- tions Lab at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y., told Wired. "e spatial environment influences how we can move and circulate. ese are important in healthcare settings." For example, Penn Medicine's flagship hospital in Philadelphia opened a new pavilion in October 2021 that centered its design on creating a comfortable envi- ronment for patients to heal, according to the report. Because sleep is essential to healing, the hospital features "onstage" and "offstage" areas to reduce noise and disruptions. Patients' rooms are "onstage," lining the outside of the building. Supply rooms, medication rooms and areas for staff breaks are "offstage," clustered in the mid- dle of the building. Each room in the pavilion has a large window, which helps patients foster healthy sleep-wake patterns. e win- dows were also included in each room to reduce common hospital complications such as delirium by allowing patients to orient themselves to the outside world. "Part of the best care might be keeping people calm, giving them space to be alone — things that might seem frivolous but are really important," Annmarie Ad- ams, PhD, a professor at Montreal-based McGill University who studies the history of hospital architecture, told Wired. n

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