By: Frankye Myers, Riverside Health Chief Nurse Executive
In 2023, for the first time ever, Riverside Health reached its 75th-percentile goal for patient experience in the acute care setting, our biggest population, as reported by the Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers & Systems (HCAHPS) Survey from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. This national, standardized, publicly reported survey measures patients’ perceptions of their hospital experience via paper questionnaires mailed by a third-party vendor shortly following a hospital stay.
For non-hospital care, such as a visit to an emergency department, lab or doctor’s office, Riverside’s survey vendor collects feedback from patients via email or text. Favorable survey scores in many of these care settings have also reflected improved patient experiences across the health system from 2022 to 2023, despite ongoing pandemic-related challenges. This included a 77th-percentile ranking for outpatient ambulatory surgery and an 81st-percentile performance from our Lifelong Health short-stay facilities.
At Riverside, we believe that succeeding in the patient-experience arena begins with defining it correctly. Patient experience isn’t necessarily about how “happy” or “satisfied” a patient is, which is highly subjective, often dependent on outcomes and difficult to measure in a standardized manner. Rather, it’s about the consistency of quality care received by our patients during each encounter — and the degree to which we are building a trusting relationship with them.
We’re in the business of highly reliable experiences. Are our patients feeling heard? Do they feel comfortable speaking up? Do they feel safe and understand what’s happening with their care? Did they have a long wait time? What was their first impression? Are they returning to us when they need care? How often are these things happening?
Of course, our work frequently results in happy patients and positive health outcomes, but, knowing it isn’t realistic to expect that all the time, our focus is being a trustworthy, reliable, strong partner in our patients’ health care. Surveys can help us set realistic, achievable goals for doing so, while comparing ourselves to others in the industry.
Via 19 different surveys across the health system, the vast majority of our patients receive a survey about their care. At Riverside, we have a great partnership with our community, as evidenced by our survey response rate. Our patients feel connected to us, and we’ve found that they want to give us feedback because they know we are going to act on it.
Some of this data is publicly reported, and some is simply for us to be informed about care quality so that we can improve where needed. With such a large health system, hearing from our patients is the best way for us to know what we can do better and to celebrate and learn from what is being done well. So, what’s behind positive scores? And what’s the best way to boost them? Most recently, Riverside has found success in a patient-experience strategy that is intentional, evidence based, data informed and celebratory of our teams
First came intentionality. In 2023, we specifically committed to not adding anything “new” to the endeavor, especially considering the flood of new health care policies, rules and procedures that have been necessary over the last few years. Instead, we leaned in on the fundamental practices we knew would be meaningful to our patients. System wide, our leaders supported these tried-and-true efforts to keep patient experience in sharp focus without distraction.
Several years ago, we developed “The Riverside Care Difference Essentials” to support our commitment to safety, quality and service excellence, using existing research and best practices as a guide. Last year, we honed in on portions of these evidence-based essentials and ensured that our leaders and teams know how to implement and measure them.
A key part of this centers on the practice of rounding to facilitate frequent communication between leaders, teams and patients. Leaders are not only rounding on their teams to ensure they have what they need each day, but also making and documenting their own patient rounds, which enables them to resolve issues live and celebrate the team. Both leaders and teams are rounding in waiting areas to ensure that patients feel heard, supported and cared for even while waiting. Purposeful rounding by inpatient nurses facilitates hourly connection with patients during the day and every few hours at night. Additionally, bedside shift reports ensure our teams speak to one another between shifts to close any communication gaps and reassure patients during the handoff.
Our focus on patient experience is also now heavily data informed. We’ve supported and retrained our leaders, reviewing how practices are measured and making a greater effort to push reports directly to them, so they don’t have to pull information. Data leveraged from our bed, call bell and staff badge locating systems enables valuable daily reports on the consistency of hourly rounding and bedside shift reports. Similarly, we’ve pushed patient rounds documentation to leaders for transparency and a little friendly competition.
Survey result data is also presented and discussed in most meetings and delivered to leaders often, which has helped them to stay informed and prioritize what to focus on when rounding or supporting their teams. Our leaders are educated on how best to interpret and utilize all of this information, not in a punitive way, but through timely support and coaching.
Finally, we’re making sure to include our teams and leaders in the work of patient experience initiatives. A key piece of that is a commitment to celebrating our staff as much as possible. When patients mention a team member by name in a survey or other form of feedback, we automatically nominate that person as a “Champion of Caring” award recipient. Team members and leaders that are driving the work and having fun with it are celebrated by highlighting them in meetings, sending e-cards in our “CelebrateU” platform, sharing our gratitude in personal cards and simply being purposeful to say thank you when we see someone doing the right thing.
While these efforts are led by our dedicated Patient Experience department, leaders across the organization — from the front lines to executive management — have committed to these practices and are showing up every day to live out the Riverside mission in every service line. They see our patients as their loved ones, care for them accordingly and help their teammates do the same. Improved patient experience scores, and a host of other important indicators of health care excellence, are a natural reflection of a concerted, patient-centered strategy.