“A specific survey question about written discharge instructions will give hospital administrators more actionable information concerning an increase in readmission rates than a response to a 10-point satisfaction scale,” Dr. Crofton explains.
Efforts to Improve
At medical institutions across the nation, hospitalists and their team members are making conscious efforts to improve the patient experience in light of the growing importance of surveys. Baylor Scott and White Health in Round Rock, Texas, offers a lecture series and provider coaching as part of its continuing education program. The training, says Trina E. Dorrah, MD, MPH, a BSWH hospitalist and physician director for quality improvement, encompasses such topics as:
- Dealing with difficult patient scenarios;
- Patient experience improvement tips;
- Tips to improve providers’ explanations; and
- Tips to improve patients’ understanding.
Dr. Dorrah uses one-on-one shadowing to help providers improve the patient experience.
“I accompany the provider when visiting the patient and observe his or her interactions,” she says. “This enables me to help providers to see what skills they can incorporate to positively impact patient experience.”
Interdisciplinary rounds have also helped to improve the patient experience.
“Patients want to know that their entire healthcare team is focused on them and that they are working together to improve their experience,” Dr. Dorrah says. On weekdays, hospitalists lead interdisciplinary rounds with the rest of the care team, including case management, nursing, and therapy. “We discuss our patients and ensure that we are all on the same page regarding the plan.”
In addition, hospitalists round with nurses each morning. “Everyone benefits,” Dr. Dorrah says. “The patient gets more coordinated care and the nurse is better educated about the plan of care for the day. The number of pages from the nurse to the physician is also reduced because the nurse better understands the care plan.”
BSWH, which uses Press Ganey Associates to administer HCAHPS surveys, considers the scores for the doctor communication domain when establishing a hospitalist team goal for the year.
“If our team reaches the goal, the leadership/administrative team rewards the hospitalist team with a financial bonus,” Dr. Dorrah says.
Lawrence General Hospital, in Lawrence, Mass., which also uses Press Ganey Associates to administer and manage its HCAHPS satisfaction surveys, is working to increase the ability of hospitalists and other caregivers to proactively meet and exceed patients’ needs with its Five-to-Thrive program. The program consists of these five strategies:
- Care-Out-Loud: an initiative that charges every clinical and nonclinical staff member to be present, sensitive, and compassionate to the patient and explain each step of the clinical interaction;
- Manager rounding on staff and patients;
- Hourly staff rounding on patients;
- Interdisciplinary bedside rounding; and
- Senior leader rounding.
Dr. Valera
“It is based on best practice tactics that aim to improve the overall patient and family experience,” says Damaris Valera, MS, CMPE, director of the hospital’s Service Excellence Program.
Cogent Healthcare at University of Florida Health in Jacksonville, Fla., places a large emphasis on AIDET principles—acknowledge, introduce, duration, explanation, and thank you—during each patient encounter, says Larry Sharp, MD, SFHM, system medical director. AIDET principles entail offering a pleasant greeting and introducing yourself to patients, keeping patients abreast of wait times, explaining procedures, and thanking patients for the opportunity to participate in their care.
The medical director makes shadow rounds with providers and then ghost rounds by surveying the patients after rounds to get the patients’ direct feedback about encounters.
Dr. Sharp
“We provide information to our providers from these rounds as a method to improve care,” Dr. Sharp says.
Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago trains hospitalists on communication skills and consequently saw a trend toward improved satisfaction scores and used physician face cards to improve patients’ knowledge of the names and roles of physicians, which did not impact patient satisfaction, reports Kevin J. O’Leary, MD, MS, SFHM, associate professor of medicine, chief of the division of hospital medicine, and associate chair for quality in the department of medicine at Northwestern.3,4 Findings were published in the Journal of Hospital Medicine.