The following is an excerpt of a white paper of the same title available through a paid membership to The Beryl Institute. To learn more about obtaining a copy of the paper or becoming a member of The Beryl Institute, click here.
Executives from The Beryl Institute recently hosted three patient experience leaders in a roundtable discussion on improving the patient experience. These patient experience champions come from varied backgrounds, but they bear one strong similarity — a passionate commitment to creating exceptional experiences for patients, patient’s families and friends.
Through extended conversations during The Beryl Institute’s roundtable discussion, each individual expressed in many different ways the paradox of their roles. While their efforts were grounded in the critical nature of building relationships throughout their organizations, they acknowledged at times it seemed as if they were the lone torchbearers for their important task. They each held up and stood for the ideals and actions that would have a positive impact on the service culture of their respective organizations. What lessons can we absorb from their parallel experiences? Four key themes emerged:
1. Build and feed a web of relationships. Patient experience leaders need to build the critical relationships to drive their efforts forward effectively. They should also consider what sort of structure will work best to lead improvement efforts focused on the patient experience.
2. Look before leaping. No recipe for success is perfectly transferable from place to place. Some basic practices may be replicable, but each tactic must be adapted to suit a given environment. Carefully consider the order in which you take action. Do not assume that one organization’s priorities can be adopted by another or that a specific check list will work everywhere.
3. Discover the motivating factor. Simply stated, what is the pain point for the organization? True, every organization is at risk with respect to value-based purchasing, but aside from regulatory pressures, patient experience leaders must ascertain the motivation for the organization to take on patient experience improvement as a key mission.
4. Remain committed. All too often, improvement efforts are turned into "initiatives" (a label that equates to the kiss of death for most projects). But "initiatives" have a "shelf life," meaning they not only have a beginning, they also must have an end. Patient experience efforts cannot be initiatives; they are fundamental shifts in ways of being and they are often tough uphill climbs.
Note: The full version of the white paper covers what it takes to both launch and sustain patient experience efforts and includes practical advice and tips for hospitals that want to begin to focus on improving the patient’s experience.
The Beryl Institute serves as a professional home for stakeholders who recognize that the patient experience is an essential element in the execution and evaluation of healthcare performance. The Institute defines the patient experience as "the sum of all interactions, shaped by an organization's culture, that influence patient perceptions across the continuum of care."