Victor Giovanetti is executive vice president of hospital operations at LifePoint Health in Brentwood, Tenn.
He outlines how LifePoint is improving the patient experience and trends to watch for the future.
Q: What will be the most important patient experience innovation 18 months from now? How are you pivoting in that direction?
Victor Giovanetti: Within the next 18 months, patients will play an important role in directly advising government agencies on what to ask and how to ask patients for feedback about their healthcare experience. Today's patient experience feedback process reflects patient and stakeholder input from more than 15 years ago. Shifting from this outdated model to one where patients are actively involved in designing a better feedback process that truly reflects patient and family needs will have a significant impact on provider organizations, causing them to think differently about engaging patients in their care.
LifePoint Health has been preparing for this pivotal shift by focusing on implementing structured patient and family engagement initiatives for many years. As a result, our organization now has 28 dedicated Patient Family Advisory Councils, 29 patients serving on patient safety and quality committees, and 15 patients serving on the boards of several of our hospitals. These patients are important leaders who are helping to drive meaningful change across our network so that we can help ensure a safe, high quality and enjoyable patient experience for all.
When CMS makes the call for patient advisors, LifePoint will be ready with a substantial number of vetted advisors to serve in this important capacity. We remain committed to embracing the voices of our patients and their families to help advance our mission of making communities healthier.
Q: If you could make your hospital or health system more like one other company or industry, what would it be?
VG: At LifePoint Health, ensuring high quality care and patient safety is our top priority. We often look to the aviation industry for inspiration when it comes to safety, in particular, because the pilots and flight crew must adhere to strict safety protocols. There are many standard safety checks that take place before, during and after each flight, which is a primary reason that air travel is the safest mode of transportation today.
Importantly, the safety checks and protocols are completely hardwired into the daily routines of airline staff members, and there are clear expectations and responsibilities associated with each person's role. This consistent discipline and accountability is imperative to keeping travelers safe, and it has been proven to work time and time again.
From our perspective, healthcare can learn a lot from aviation, particularly when it comes to implementing quality and safety practices in such a way that they become automatic and deeply embedded in the daily work of providers and clinical staff. This is a key component of becoming a highly reliable organization.
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