Issue link: https://beckershealthcare.uberflip.com/i/148064
Special Focus: Improving HCAHPS and CAHPS scores 15 Patient Experience Roundtable: Raising and Maintaining Patient Satisfaction By Anuja Vaidya One of the driving forces behind the changes taking place in the healthcare industry is the increasing importance of patient experience. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and other changes in healthcare have led patients to take a more consumerist approach to deciding where to receive care. It is thus essential for hospitals and health systems to ensure that patient satisfaction at their organizations remain high. Here, leaders and patient experience coordinators from various organizations with high scores on the Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems survey offer advice on how to improve patient experience and maintain high patient satisfaction. Question: What are some of the strategies your hospital has implemented to improve patient experience and satisfaction? Michelle Breitfelder, Senior Vice President of Clinical Transformation, Columbus (Ga.) Regional Healthcare System: Our CEO meets patients in the holding area for surgeries before they are taken back in for surgery almost every day. We have interdisciplinary work groups that help us identify opportunities for improving patient satisfaction — we involve everyone that handled the patient from the various departments. We even give out freshly baked cookies to every patient that leaves the hospital. The cookies have the hospital logo on them, and it is our way to bid a fond farewell to the patient. We also make sure that that our employees are recognized for their achievements by the entire staff of the hospital. We feel that happy employees make happy patients. Randy Yust Maureen Broms, MS, RN, Chief Information Officer and Vice President, Health Care Quality and Compliance, New England Baptist Hospital (Boston): I would say that maintaining patient satisfaction is a cultural initiative. You need to have a very strong culture that is focused on serving the patient. This includes the CEO. If the CEO is not focused on the patient having a good experience, then it remains an initiative and does not become part of the culture. We also have a hiring process that focuses on looking for people who are committed to giving the patient the best possible experience that they can have. We do our best to create a welcoming and inviting atmosphere. We have a hands-on process for responding to patient letters or complaints. Our CEO, vice president and physician chairman are all involved. We try to learn from those complaints, and we differentiate between facts and patient experience. Even if we are did everything correctly clinically, it might still mean that the patient didn't feel cared for. You need to take patient experiences as they are without trying to make it about validating your processes and proving the patient wrong. It is important to figure out whether or not there was a gap in your processes, but it is more important to work with the patients and address their issues. Michelle Breitfelder Maureen Broms, MS, RN Randy Yust, CFO, COO, IU Health North Hospital (Carmel, Ind.): We frequently review data and information that is related to patient experience and the patient satisfaction surveys at our manager's meeting, and at monthly meetings to check progress and make changes. We regularly recognize associates, departments and, when appropriate, volunteers for outstanding service and achievements. We do this through Paul Calkins, MD Joy Graves-Rust