Becker's Clinical Quality & Infection Control

7 One of the things Planetree is focused on in the work that we've done for decades is identifying which practices correlate with excellence, and then we've organized those into a framework that organizations can use to guide their work. Some organizations also want to formally recognize their progress so there is a designation process in patient-centered excellence for which they can apply. Another possibility is to use the criteria as the framework to help guide them since it is very comprehensive and it was essentially devel- oped by patients. I think it's very important that organizations don't approach waste time and re- sources in a scattered fashion given everything we know about what works in implementing patient- centered culture changes and sustaining them. In terms of important specific suggestions, I would encourage establishment of an active patient-family partnership counsel so that every organization reaches out to the people it serves — the patients and their families — and invites them to be part of an involved group that works with the organization. For example, members can review patient safety initiatives, sit on the qual- ity committee and review sentinel events, or they might be involved in interviewing and hiring de- cisions. Giving the patients that are served a seat at the table in terms of how the organization is run can be incredibly transformational. Another tactic could be to focus on addressing the needs of clinical staff for more skills train- ing around communication. Many physicians and nurses and caregivers get little to no formal communications training in medical school de- spite the fact that they are in the communication business. They are communicating with patients and their families every day, hundreds of times of day. Many errors and compliance issues — a great challenge for our system — comes down to communication. So we really need to refocus on providing quick, practical communication tips and training for clinicians. Quality, safety and patient-centeredness — look- ing at issues through the human perspective of the individual patient — is the third leg of the stool when we talk about improving our health- care system. Q: What are the benefits of taking a pa- tient-centered approach to care, besides happier patients? SF: There are real financial benefits today to im- proving the patient experience because hospitals, in particular, are at the forefront of the public reporting movement. Hospitals have to survey patients after discharge and ask them, how did we do? How was your experience? Were you lis- tened to? Was our staff responsive? Did you get your questions answered? These questionnaires are being sent out by a majority of our hospitals today, and the data that comes back is publicly reported on the Internet. Reimbursement from Medicare and Medicaid are linked to those survey results. Hospitals now have to hit certain levels of competence on the patient experience measures in order to get their full Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement. These financial incentives have encouraged many more efforts to address patient- centeredness, and while we've seen some move- ment, so far we're not seeing huge improvements. I think part of the challenge is we're not seeing widespread consistent, coherent, coordinated ef- forts to improve the experience. Patient experience scores and a dashboard that captures performance on patient-centered prac- tices should be shared with the leadership and board of healthcare organizations, just like finan- cials are. Unfortunately, that is not common at this point. That said, I'm still very optimistic about the trajectory of patient-centered care. I think that people will continue to experiment with different practices and approaches, and as we do a better job at integrating patients and families into the design of improvement initiatives, we'll continue to learn as we go and get better and better. n The Charm is to use DisCide Ultra The Luck is that it's effective against Ebola and Enterovirus D68 + disinfects 20 + microorganisms in 1 Minute or less! www.palmerohealth.com 800-344-6424 HOW DOES YOUR DISINFECTANT RATE? Visit EPA website for more info http://www.epa.gov/oppad001/atp-product-list.pdf http://www.epa.gov/oppad001/list-l-ebola-virus.html Spring into action and Try before you buy: When requesting a free sample don't forget to mention ORTODAY as how you heard about us. • Ready-to-use quaternary ammonium, high-level disinfectant • 1 Minute hospital level, one-step, disinfectant • One of the fastest kill time on the market • Kills 99.99% Germs! • Laboratory-proven to kill deadly pathogens • Kills over 21 deadly pathogens* in 1 minute or less • EPA & FDA registered www.palmerohealth.com/requestSamples

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