Redesigning the Care Experience

Why We Need a Community Effort for Patient Experience Improvement

When first hearing the term patient experience, some might claim it is the latest healthcare management fad and others a marketing ploy created to attract healthcare clients to new services and solutions. While these reactions may be deserved based on other healthcare precedents, they do not represent what is now taking place. Patient experience has taken on a true life of its own and there is a clear and growing movement for patient experience improvement.

The Right Thing to Do

For those in healthcare, improving the experience is one thing that is right to do. It is about providing the type of care experience for patients and families that you would want for yourself and your loved ones and more so an experience these individuals are hoping for, and more significantly, expecting.

At The Beryl Institute, our focus has been to create a space for our members and the broader healthcare community to engage and contribute to elevating the dialogue on improving the patient experience. We work every day to create and sustain a global community and gathering place where ideas can be fostered and shared. In a shared commitment to this cause, healthcare leaders are contributing every day to dialogue through The Beryl Institute on practices, processes and programs focused on patient experience improvement.

Bringing Focus to the Challenge

In support of these efforts, we have worked with our community to establish and share a clear and forward-looking definition for patient experience to help frame and focus the conversation. We see patient experience as the sum of all interactions, shaped by an organization’s culture, that influence patient perceptions across the continuum of care. This definition has brought focus to our mission of improving the patient experience and helped foster the growth of the community to almost 20,000 members in over 45 countries.

In conjunction with a framing definition, we have focused intently on understanding how organizations are working to address patient experience overall. Through not only community connection and conversation, but also in focused research, we have benchmarked the state of the patient experience and expanded the means to measure overall progress.

Benchmarking Progress

In July 2013, The Institute released a report highlighting results from its patient experience benchmarking study, The State of Patient Experience in American Hospitals, exploring the drivers and roadblocks facing healthcare organizations addressing improvement. The headlines – support from senior leadership continues to be the biggest driving force in supporting patient experience efforts, and distracted leadership is now listed as the biggest roadblock. However, hospital professionals continue to be cautiously and realistically optimistic about the progress being made to improve the patient experience overall, and tactical change is underway and focused on key issues including:

  • Better communication
  • Reduced noise levels
  • Improving the discharge process

I invite you to download the complimentary research report for much more information and if you are looking for the key highlights of the findings, an infographic of the study results is also available.

Breaking Down Barriers to Success

Our commitment at The Beryl Institute remains that by bringing together a broad community of practice and providing the venues – both physical and virtual – for not just learning, but interactions and sharing, we break down barriers to success and expose new paths to patient experience improvement.

While much has been accomplished, there is much more room to grow. The challenge remains to stay focused and committed to what we can, and should, accomplish together.

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Jason A. Wolf, President, The Beryl Institute Jason is a passionate champion and recognized expert on patient experience improvement, organizational effectiveness and change, and sustaining high performance in healthcare. As President of The Beryl Institute, Jason has led the growth of the organization from a powerful idea for improvement in healthcare to an organization now recognized as a leading global community of practice and thought leader on improving the patient experience, engaging over 38,000 people in more than 50 countries. Jason is also the founding Editor of the Patient Experience Journal, the first open-access, peer-reviewed journal committed to research and practice in patient experience improvement. Prior to joining the Institute, Jason designed and led the organization change, service, and leadership development strategies with HCA and conducted groundbreaking research to identify the characteristics of high performance healthcare organizations. Jason is a sought after speaker and an author of numerous articles and publications including two recent books on organization culture, change and performance in healthcare.

Jason A. Wolf, Ph.D., President, The Beryl Institute has 3 post(s) at EngagingPatients.org

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