I really think that you all would agree we've had a fantastic, we've had fantastic presentations this morning, and I certainly enjoyed hearing the expertise and wisdom of everyone participating. For our next segment of the day, we will discuss demonstrating in a durable way our commitment to equitable patient-centered care, and I'm honored to bring Lisa back to the virtual podium to give insights into mastering the patient-centered experience. Lisa, take it away. Great. Thank you very much, and thanks for having me back for the second half of this session. Right. So today I'm going to talk about mastering the patient-centered experience, and I have no financial relationships to disclose. The learning objective for this session are to define patient experience, describe patient satisfaction, state the importance of the patient experience, and then identify initiatives that enhance your patient's experience. Okay. So this is a pretty comprehensive definition of the patient experience, and the patient experience encompasses the range of interactions that patients have with the healthcare system, and this includes care from their physicians, their nurses, the hospital staff, physician practices, and other healthcare facilities. So it's important to emphasize that the patient experience and patient satisfaction are not the exact same thing, but they're closely related, right? So patient satisfaction measures the extent to which a patient is content with the healthcare services they receive, and it's also important to know that two patients can receive the exact same care, but if they have different expectations on how their care should be delivered, they can have a very different level of satisfaction and also a very different patient experience. So that's important to note and to remember when you're taking care of your patients. So why is the patient experience important? We all know that healthcare systems can be very complicated for our patients and family members to navigate, and it can be a very stress-invoking and anxiety-invoking experience. And even to us who are healthcare workers who are on the other end of the spectrum, it can be very stressful. So creating a positive patient experience can do wonders in alleviating the stress and anxiety. It can also provide a greater patient engagement and empowerment. Giving our patients a feeling of being more comfortable, less anxious, equals a better patient outcome. It can provide for increased patient safety, improved clinical outcomes, and higher patient satisfaction. And then we all know it can lead to a shorter length of stay and reduced admissions. And then speaking to in the endo unit, it may ultimately lead to like a quicker recovery. So the OAS CAHPS is the Outpatient and Ambulatory Surgery Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems. And this survey is designed to measure the experiences of care for patients who visit Medicare-certified hospital outpatient departments or ambulatory centers for a surgical or procedural experience. And it's to collect information about the patient experience. So hopefully folks are familiar with this. And this survey will ask patients multiple questions about their visit experience, right? So the questions are specific to such areas as nursing care, communication from the care team, appointment promptness, speaking to like delays, privacy, and et cetera. This is all outlined in the survey that is distributed to the patient. The survey also provides space for patients to provide comments about their experience. In my organization, the patients will receive this survey electronically within five days post-visit. They will then receive a reminder email through EPIC, the MyChart feature, to complete the survey. In the past, these were distributed by postal mail. And then the return rates were not that great. So now that folks can receive them electronically through the EPIC features and then the reminders go out, we've seen a greater sample size with the return survey. I wanted to show a snapshot of our GI units data for the calendar year 2023. And at the time that this slide was developed, we hadn't had the December data back yet because it's always lagging about a month and a half behind. So this shows from January 2023 through November. And so this is actually for the global overall rating of the patient experience and what is rolled into that global rating for satisfaction includes questions under all of the domains, right? Communication, nursing care, provider care, personal treatment by the facility, and that includes from the minute they walk in the door to the minute the patient leaves, and then discharge information. There's also, just to share with the group, there's also some information, questions related to anesthesia or sedation related satisfaction. So as you can see, our endo unit has trended up from the national benchmark, and that is the mustard color target line. And we have continued to trend up since April 2023. So this leads us to believe that the strategies implemented continue to be successful in meeting our patient satisfaction goals. So I do have an audience poll, I just wanted to gather information from those out there to see, does your endo unit monitor patient satisfaction data and review this and discuss the patient experience with your team? Oh, wow, that's awesome. Yeah, and for those that are not sure, I would ask the question, you know, ask your leadership, what are we doing? What are we looking at for patient satisfaction? Because that is like hot on the plate right now. All right, great, thank you. So you may ask, how did we get there, right? And how are we able to sustain? So I'm going to tell you, I'm going to share that with you. So initiatives have been put into place after researching best practices and compiling data from our patient comment sections. That's where we gather the most meat of the matter on what the patients are thinking related to some of their replies and responses in the survey. Each initiative that I have outlined on this screen have proven to be effective strategies in raising the scores for the endo unit. So I'll just go through some of these. And the waiting room where patients gather pre-procedure and they're waiting to be brought back. Our clerical team and our charge team do periodic rounding to keep the patients informed of where things are at, if there's a delay, how are things running, you know, any questions. So there's consistent rounding in that room. There's a patient tracking board for family members to be in the know. They will be given like a special number. They can track their family members, significant other, and where they are along the process as patients are clicked into each area, pre-procedure, intra-procedure, post-procedure. So they're in the know. There's soft music in the waiting room and it's also piped into the pre-procedure area. There's noise reduction strategies that have been put in place from a project that one of the leaders developed for one of their leadership projects and it includes multiple strategies like keeping the privacy curtain closed during the interview process while patients are waiting. We have a sound meter and ear meter on the unit to help staff identify when it goes red that the volumes on the unit are getting high and it's been proven in the literature that that can lead to staff stress and anxiety. We have a shh campaign that is a gold standard developed from the literature where staff are aware and they hold each other accountable to when noise levels are rising. We have complimentary parking because we know that there's off-site ambulatory centers where patients don't have to pay for parking. So even though we're onsite in the hospital, we've been able to negotiate for that for our patients. The nurse manager conducts leader rounding on the unit where she stops and touches base with maybe not every patient but patients in the pre- and the post-phase of care. There's staff scripting where incorporated into the terms are we want to make sure that you receive the very best care as this is one of the terms used in the survey. We track and trend on time starts. We did a whole project on that for cases. And now with Epic, the data is quickly available to be able to show, right, wheels in, wheels out. This is posted in an anonymous manner for physicians and nursing. We also do the post-procedure phone call to follow up on the patient once they've exited our unit. So it's like a couple days out. This information is discussed at the unit monthly quality team meetings. It's talked about in weekly staff meetings. We post our unit scorecard in a staff-centric area. So the staff in the endo unit, they can speak to what's being monitored, what the metrics are, what patient satisfaction numbers are, and they can relate those scores to the patient experience and define what patient satisfaction is. We also talk about the patient hot comments that come through monthly. Okay, so shifting gears, what about diversity, equity, and inclusion? I think we all know that in order to maximize the patient experience, we need to be sensitive to all DEI considerations. By working on delivering care through the lens of the DEI, it can help us maximize that patient experience, right? So our focus at caregivers should always be caring for our patients the way they want to be treated. You know, how I grew up in nursing, it was always, you know, take care of patients the way you want to be treated. I think it's shifted gears now. We need to focus on the way the patient wants to be treated and cared for. So a couple examples are, you know, making sure that there's a mix of female and male caregivers in a procedure room for both patient genders being cognizant of not having a female patient going to a room with all male members of the healthcare team, preserving patient privacy pre, intra, and post procedure. And then another thing that we do is we ask our patients how they would like to be addressed, right? And none of this calling them hon, honey, dear. So we solicit our patient for what's the best way to address them. So in summary, patient experience matters because it equals patient satisfaction. And every encounter that the patient has with a member of the healthcare team helps shape their experience. It's best to understand your patient experience data, communicate this to your team, to the people boots on the ground, collaborate, connect, and pivot as needed, right? If there's information in the hot comments about ways you're doing things, be prepared to talk to your team. How can we provide a better experience? We have a lot of private practice providers that practice in our unit. We also have some university based. So as the manager, I would communicate patient hot comments that directly involve the providers back to the provider, whether they were good areas for opportunity in different, I wanted them to be in the know, not just the nursing staff. I would also say, like, always keep your eye on the ball, right? Don't lose sight of where you are, where you want to be, and then develop strategies on how to get there. And then DEI is a priority in the eyes of the patient. Some food for thought, always be looking to improve, improve, improve. So even though our endoscopy unit is above the benchmark, they're always soliciting the team for new ideas, new ways. They're looking at the research out there, how to make the best experience for the patient. And they're looking at the hot comments. A lot of times patients will put suggestions in there. So always keep your eye on the ball. Yeah, so thank you.

patient-centered experience

healthcare

patient satisfaction

communication strategies

diversity and inclusion