From real-time communication updates to bedside interactions, hospitals and health systems are increasingly focused on enhancing personalization to drive patient experience improvements.
Becker's recently connected with several health systems to explore their core strategies for improving patient experience and reflect on notable advancements over the past year. A common theme among their responses was an emphasis on proactive and personalized communication between patients and staff. To support this, hospitals are leveraging digital platforms to better engage patients in their care, including patients in the rounding process, and creating new ways for clinical teams to stay connected with patients after surgery and discharge.
Data from The Leapfrog Group indicates such efforts are working after patient experience measures took a dive during the pandemic. The latest data shows composite measures for staff resposiveness and communication about medicines ticked up by 0.16 and 0.23 points, respectively, between fall 2023 and spring 2024.
Editor's note: Responses have been lightly edited for length and clarity.
Steve Basilotto. Chief Experience Officer at Froedtert ThedaCare Health (Milwaukee): While patient experience surveys provide some data to help us meet their needs, we continue to invest in advanced capabilities to better understand what our patients want and value. We find that there is rarely one single initiative or program that leads to improved patient satisfaction and outcomes, but a culmination of many different factors. By listening to what our patients need, we one, developed a robust service culture program to optimize the way our patient and team members best interact with each other; two, created an advanced digital-engagement platform that facilitates care delivery around the clock; and three,dramatically improved patient communications and navigation within and outside of our facilities.
Shlomit Schaal, MD. Chief Medical Officer at Houston Methodist: Over the last few months, we have implemented a text messaging pilot at one of our physician practices. The pilot includes all providers in the practice – primary care and specialty care – and provides the patients with an update on the wait time for their appointment. The time is calculated based on the physician's practice that day, and is based on key activities within EPIC. The patients have been very receptive to the text message updates, and we have seen this through the patient experience surveys. Patients have said that they appreciated getting the text update and they feel like this helps ensure that the patient flow is smooth. One patient noted that "the text message was a nice touch as to estimate the wait time."
Rick Riggs, MD. Senior Vice President of Medical Affairs and Chief Medical Officer at Cedars-Sinai (Los Angeles): Patient experience continues to be one of our key focus areas at Cedars-Sinai. Alongside our pursuit of exceptional clinical outcomes, our dedication to a human-centered healing environment is woven into every part of our daily practice.
One particularly impactful initiative in Cedars-Sinai's annual patient experience action plan is aimed at perfecting our teamwork approach in patient care. We focused on our patients’ answers to the question, 'How well did our staff work together to care for you?'; and we created a multi-disciplinary work group to gather patient input. Based on our patients' responses, we created several tests of change and collaborated to track and monitor outcomes. As a result, we learned having nurses join physicians more consistently on rounds and including patients in the bedside handoff yielded extremely positive outcomes and a statistically significant increase in the teamwork survey question, which is a key driver for our primary patient experience measures.
Elizabeth Golden. Executive Vice President for communications, marketing, and government and community affairs at NYU Langone (New York City): As the nation’s No. 1 health system for quality and safety, as named by Vizient, Inc., NYU Langone Health has undertaken a number of recent hospitality initiatives that have significantly improved patient satisfaction and outcomes.
At NYU Langone Health, hospitality is one important factor in our No. 1 status for quality and patient safety. Several recent initiatives have significantly improved patient satisfaction and outcomes. A program at our Manhattan hospital allows our clinical team to connect more proactively with patients after discharge, resulting in a 50% reduction in 72-hour return visits to the emergency room for those who are at highest risk.
Surgeons in the hospital's perioperative area also video record personal messages updating patients on how a procedure went and their recovery plan, for those who may be less lucid coming out of the procedure. They also follow up with a phone call the next day.
Another program at our ambulatory locations involved empowering staff to build genuine connections with patients, using personal touches that transform vulnerable moments and improve outcomes. This improved our patient satisfaction scores across the board.
Other examples include our hospital-at-home program on Long Island, where we use telemedicine and remote monitoring to access a patient's real-time vital signs and clinical data, so they can recover at home. These are just a few examples of our ongoing dedication to strive for a positive patient experience everywhere, every time.