Medicine and Health Sciences Commons^™

Helping Patients Navigate The Emergency Department: Assessing The Utility Of A Poster Illustrating The Patient Journey, Lynette D. Krebs, Cristina Villa-Roel, Maria B. Ospina, Brian R. Holroyd, Brian H. Rowe

Patient Experience Journal

Patients often have limited understanding of the emergency department (ED) care process, which can increase anxiety, frustration, and confusion. This study implemented and assessed the usefulness of a poster explaining the ED care process. A large wall-mounted poster illustrating the patient journey was developed; two different data collection techniques were used. First, a QR code/URL was used to passively collect patient reactions to the poster in 15 EDs. Due to limited response, a paper survey was developed and delivered by research assistants in three study sites using a consecutive sampling method. A total of 67 responses were collected from the …

Meaningful Engagement Of Patients And Families In A Complex Trial Of Advance Care Planning In Primary Care, Angela K. Combe, Deborah L. Dokken, Mary M. Minniti, Annette M. Totten

Patient Experience Journal

Engagement of Patient and Family Advisors (PFAs) is increasingly recommended as best practice in research. During the design and conduct of a large trial of advance care planning (ACP) in primary care, we expanded on the funder’s (Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute®) requirement for an engagement plan and sought to develop an innovative approach to fostering and sustaining meaningful engagement of PFAs throughout all phases of the trial. Structures were developed that integrated PFAs into planning and provided the foundation for their ongoing participation. A continuous quality improvement approach became the framework for ongoing engagement. This involved setting goals; collecting data …

Informed Consent In Surgical Practice With Patients’ Experiences: A Cross-Sectional Study, Seda Kumru, Pakize Yiğit, Meryem Demirtaş, Hüseyin Fındık

Patient Experience Journal

This study aims to evaluate patients' experiences and perspectives regarding informed consent in surgical practice. Data for this cross-sectional study were collected from 276 patients using a questionnaire developed by Falagas et al. Descriptive statistics were employed for all questions. Statistical tests such as the Mann-Whitney U test, Kruskal-Wallis test, and Spearman's rank correlation analysis were performed, and Cohen's effect sizes were reported. IBM SPSS 23.0 was used for all analyses, and p<0.05 was considered statistically significant. A high score on both The Delivered Information Index and The Patient-Physician Index represents a positive informed consent process. Among the participants, 65.2% indicated that they understood all parts of the consent form. Of all patients, 92.8% reported that information about the specific surgical procedure was provided by physicians. However, 47.5% of the patients reported that they did not feel comfortable with their surgeons. The mean score of the Delivered Information Index was 5.63 (2.38). The mean patient-physician relationship score was 14.38 (3.31). There was a moderate positive correlation between the delivered information index and the patient-physician relationship (r=0.50; p<0.001). In addition, there was a moderate positive correlation between the delivered information index and the time spent on the informed consent process, as well as between the patient-physician relationship and the time spent on the informed consent process (r=0.52; r=0.40, respectively). The study emphasized the lack of communication between patients and physicians, the limitation of information on treatment risks, adverse effects, and alternative treatment options.

Experience Framework

This article is associated with the Policy & Measurement lens of The Beryl Institute Experience Framework (https://theberylinstitute.org/experience-framework/).

• Access other PXJ articles related to …

The Initial Psychometric Evaluation Of A New Emergency Department Patient-Reported Experience Measure (Ed Prem), Claudia Bull, Julia Crilly, Sharon Latimer, Emma Hall, Brigid M. Gillespie

Patient Experience Journal

Patient-reported experience measures (PREMs) are critical to evaluating the person-centeredness, safety, and quality of healthcare services internationally. The aim of this study was to describe the initial psychometric evaluation of a new Emergency Department (ED) PREM. Adult patients presenting to the ED of a tertiary hospital in southeast Queensland, Australia during January 2022 were recruited in-person. Participants selected their preferred ED PREM mode of administration from online, telephone, or postal, and had 14 days from recruitment to complete the survey. Item reduction, structural validity, discriminant validity, and internal consistency reliability were assessed. A sample of 349 (68.4%) was achieved. Item …

Everything I Needed To Know To Be A Pediatric Emergency Room Doctor, I Learned As A Waitress, Sarah Gard Lazarus

Patient Experience Journal

When I began my career as a pediatric emergency medicine physician, I believed I was prepared to take on any medical emergency. However, I was not prepared to provide a good patient family experience. Throughout my years of training, I was not taught productive ways of interacting with patients and was unaware of how impactful the patient family experience would be. Negative patient family experience scores affected my interactions with patients, my shared decision making and my ability to provide quality care. After working to improve my scores, I focused on skills I obtained in a non-medical setting, as a …

Patients’ Perceptions And Knowledge Of Source Isolation For Multi-Resistant Organisms In An Australian Metropolitan Hospital: A Bedside Interview With Questionnaire Study, Alison Smith, Gillian Ray-Barruel

Patient Experience Journal

The aim of this study was to explore perceptions and knowledge of source isolation among hospitalised patients colonised or infected with multi-resistant organisms, to identify if information provided and delivery method are helpful and appropriate, and to identify areas for practice improvements. Purposive sampling was conducted. Between November 2019 and January 2020, bedside interviews with structured questionnaires (combining multiple-choice and free-text questions) were conducted with adult in-patients requiring isolation for multi-resistant organisms in a 180-bed metropolitan hospital in Brisbane, Australia. Data analysis included quantifying multiple-choice responses and thematic analysis of free-text responses. Thirty participants completed the interview questionnaire. Lack of …

Improving The Accuracy Of Interactive Voice Response (Ivr) Technology For Pediatric Experience Scores, Elizabeth Spaargaren Ms, Mph, Cpxp, Abigail Kozak Mba, Cpxp, Cara Herbener Cpxp, Barbara Lawlor Burke Ma, Cpxp

Patient Experience Journal

The increased use of interactive voice response (IVR) in assessing patient and family experience should be paired with evidence-based practices on how to obtain the most accurate information via this survey mode. We added a brief clarification sentence of the survey scale at the start of the IVR call to improve our experience data both qualitatively and quantitatively. Our setting was an urban pediatric hospital. We gathered lived experiences from our patients, families, and providers to understand and design a change to the IVR survey mode that would reduce survey inaccuracies. Outcome measures were assessed by baseline measurement and post-intervention …

The Impact Of Follow-Up Calls After A Pediatric Emergency Department Visit, Joseph R. Mijares Iii, Sephora Morrison

Patient Experience Journal

Pediatric emergency department (ED) visits can be a stressful time for patients and their caregivers. This high stress environment can lead to questions and needed clarifications post-discharge. We implemented a post-discharge callback system to resolve these concerns for a focused subset of patients who historically have provided the most negative comment feedback on ED patient experience surveys. We hypothesized that comment types would shift to more positive than negative and the themes of the comments received would change. We developed a discharge callback process that focused on patients who were triaged as ESI level 4 during their emergency department visit. …

Children’S Experiences Of Hospitalization Over Time: An Evaluation Of Using Poetry And Creative Writing By Children To Assess Their Experiences Of Hospitalization, David Wood

Patient Experience Journal

This article explores children’s experiences of hospital admissions through their poetry and creative writing and assesses the validity of this medium compared to other methods of evaluation. Pediatric patient experiences of hospital and their effects on children have been studied in various ways and there have been stepwise changes throughout the past century, matching the overall changes of medical care from paternalistic to patient centered. 17 poems were analyzed from children aged 6-13 years old (median 10) for recurrent themes whilst admitted to a large tertiary hospital in the north of England. Children frequently wrote about attacks on their senses, …

Living With Brain Cancer: From Researcher To Patient, Stephen P. Chelko, Daniel L. Fay Ph.D.

Patient Experience Journal

As an academic researcher, my work-life revolves around testing the efficaciousness of pharmaceutical drugs on the prevention of cardiac dysfunction, arrhythmias, and sudden cardiac death in animal models of heart disease. I never thought I would go from someone studying a life-threatening disease to a patient living with one in twenty-four hours. Yet, that transformation occurred October 8, 2019. I was just appointed to Assistant Professor at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine (JHUSOM), yet after sitting for my professional headshot I had a grand mal seizure. I cannot recall this event, but I bit the tip of my tongue …

Global Child And Family-Centered Care Fellowship, Education And Mentorship For Pediatric Healthcare Professionals: A Literature Review, Ashley Zheng, Bobbijo Pansier

Patient Experience Journal

Child- and family-centered care (FCC) is increasingly accepted and implemented to optimize the healthcare experience for patients, their families, and healthcare professionals. Standish Foundation for Children, a 501(c)(3) non-profit, has designed and piloted a fellowship to educate pediatric healthcare professionals in FCC & psychosocial care via an inquiry and mentorship model in Tbilisis, Georgia. This review aimed to evaluate and synthesize existing literature on psychosocial and FCC mentorship for pediatric healthcare professionals in four parts: ongoing need, effects on healthcare professionals, effects on children and their families and/or caregivers, and in cross-country healthcare settings. Reviewers searched open-source databases for articles …

Positively Waiting: Technology As The Preferred Distractor In A Pediatric Outpatient Setting, Timothy Ernest, Victoria Maddex, Arnaldo Mejias, Lindy Davidson, Donna Ettel-Gambino

Patient Experience Journal

Visiting any pediatric outpatient clinic as a child may be considered a stressful and anxiety-inducing experience. The literature suggests that positive distractions, such as pet therapy and single-user electronic devices, may aid in reducing anxiety and maximizing patient satisfaction throughout the patient’s experience at a pediatric outpatient clinic. The aim of this pilot quality improvement project was to determine which positive distractions patients experienced and whether single-user electronic loaner devices should be provided to patients at pediatric outpatient facilities. A quantitative causal comparative approach was utilized in identifying patient exposure to key positive distraction techniques that may significantly decrease anxiety. …

When Healthcare Leadership And Philanthropy Lead To An Improved Patient Experience: The Paul Lepsoe Music Initiative, Sara Olivier Rn Bscn Mn, Corianne Bell Ba Mus, Cheryl Jones Registered Psychotherapist, Mta, Phd, Jerry M. Maniate Md, M.Ed, Frcpc, Facp

Patient Experience Journal

Through an unprecedented collaboration between an academic acute tertiary care hospital (The Ottawa Hospital (TOH) and a community-based professional orchestra (Ottawa Symphony Orchestra (OSO), the Paul Lepsoe Music Initiative represented an innovative partnership focused on improving patient care via (a) the integration of live music in waiting areas of the hospital’s Cancer Center and (b) the creation of individualized music therapy interventions on the inpatient Palliative Care Unit. Patient, family, and volunteer/staff feedback further refined the intervention throughout the duration of the Initiative; a qualitative process that provided insight into the overall patient experience and opportunities for patients and families …

Consumer Experience Of Mental Health Services During The Covid-19 Pandemic: Evidence From An Australian Mental Health System, Sarah Kelshaw, Jason Boyd, Irene Gallagher, Grant Sara

Patient Experience Journal

COVID-19 has increased the need for mental health care but disrupted its delivery. We examined impacts of the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic on consumer experience of NSW hospital and community mental health services, compared to their pre-COVID baseline. We also examined whether increased telehealth use was associated with changes in the quantity or experience of community mental health care. Data were 73,488 Your Experience of Service (YES) surveys from state mental health services in New South Wales (NSW), Australia, grouped into three periods: pre-COVID (January 2018 to March 2020), early-COVID (April to June 2020) and stable-COVID (July to …

Adapting And Responding To A Pandemic: Patient And Family Advisory Councils In Children's Hospitals During Covid-19, Pam Dardess, Deborah L. Dokken, Ndidi I. Unaka, Jesse Hsu, Mindy Hoang, Andrew F. Beck, Beverley H. Johnson

Patient Experience Journal

This mixed-methods study investigated the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on Patient and Family Advisory Councils (PFACs) within children’s hospitals in the United States. Specifically, the study sought to understand how PFACs adapted operations as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, how patient and family advisors (PFAs) were engaged in the response to COVID-19, and the intersection of the COVID-19 pandemic with PFAC diversity, equity, and inclusion. The study consisted of a survey distributed to 228 children’s hospitals, with a 73% response rate, and in-depth interviews with selected survey respondents (n=12). While COVID-19 temporarily disrupted PFAC operations and forced rapid …

Patient And Family Engagement: Bridging Together Interprofessional Practice And Patient- And Family-Centred Care, Yuchen Gao, Sylvia Abonyi, Pamela Downe, Krista Baerg, Heather A. Ward

Patient Experience Journal

Patient and family engagement as part of the health care team is increasingly recommended to meet the objective of providing safer and more coordinated care, as well as enhancing patient satisfaction. This project explores both health care professionals’ and patients and families’ experiences with patient- and family-centred care (PFCC) and interprofessional practice (IPP). Data were collected through individual interviews with 29 health care professionals and 17 patients and families on medicine and pediatrics at a tertiary care teaching hospital. Inductive coding and thematic analysis outcomes are presented using qualitative description. We used communicative action theory to interpret the gap that …

Understanding Both Sides Of The Blood Draw: The Experience Of The Pediatric Patient And The Phlebotomist, Julie R. Piazza, Sandra Merkel, Brooke Rothberg, Joan Gargaro, Kristin Kullgren

Patient Experience Journal

A phlebotomist’s words and actions play a crucial role in success of a blood draw and in providing a supportive patient experience. This study examined use of comfort measures during a pediatric blood draw. The phlebotomist’s use of soft words, positioning, distraction, coaching/support were observed with sixty children between 3-14 years of age during a blood draw. The level of fear /anxiety before and during the blood draw was recorded by an RA. The child’s level of fear/anxiety was observed and reported by the parent/caregiver after the procedure. Comfort measures provided by phlebotomists, the parent/caregiver’s report of their child’s usual …

Using Design-Thinking To Investigate And Improve Patient Experience, Jennifer Smiechowski, Megan Mercia, Kyle Kemp, Elizabeth Oddone Paolucci, Maria Santana, Rahim Kachra

Patient Experience Journal

Understanding and enhancing the patient experience can lead to improved healthcare outcomes. The purpose of this study was to capture a comprehensive and nuanced understanding of the patient experience on an inpatient medical teaching unit in order to identify key deficiencies and unmet needs. We then aim to implement a design-thinking methodology to find innovative ways to solve these deficiencies. Here we present the first two phases of this four-phased study. We retrospectively and prospectively collected quantitative data about patient experience with the Canadian Patient Experiences Survey-Inpatient Care. We then used this data to guide patient interviews. We identified several …

The Experience, Satisfaction, And Emergency Department Utilization Of Pediatric Patients With Sickle Cell Disease During The Covid-19 Pandemic, Alexandra E. Kirsch, Nataly Apollonsky

Patient Experience Journal

The COVID-19 pandemic has influenced how patients utilize healthcare. This study examines the utilization, experience, and satisfaction of patients with Sickle Cell Disease (SCD) in the pediatric Emergency Department (ED) during the COVID-19 pandemic compared to the care they had received before the pandemic. The authors surveyed fifty-eight participants ages 14 months to 20 years who presented to the ED for a complaint related to their SCD during the COVID-19 pandemic. The study analyzed five variables: race, SCD severity, hemoglobin (Hgb) genotype, who completed the questionnaire (patient versus parent/guardian), and whether the ED visit resulted in an admission to the …

A Patient’S Narrative Of Engaging Hiv Care: Lessons Learned To Harness Resources And Improve Access To Care, David Lessard, Serge Vicente, Patrick Keeler, Bertrand Lebouché

Patient Experience Journal

In Canada and the USA, about 30% of people with HIV are uninsured or not covered by government-subsidized health insurance. This paper presents a patient’s narrative of his experience being diagnosed with HIV and accessing care in the midst of his process of immigrating to and studying in Canada. The narrative explores how Vincent Croft (pseudonym) has coped with the chronicity of the infection and its associated social stigma, and the temporary solutions he found to access treatment. Engaging with healthcare providers, researchers, and other people living with HIV has allowed Croft to share his experience, including the barriers he …

The Experiences Of Rural British Columbians Accessing Surgical And Obstetrical Care, Aria Jazdarehee, Anshu Parajulee, Jude Kornelsen

Patient Experience Journal

The attrition of small volume surgical and maternity services in rural Canada over the past three decades has made access to these services especially challenging for rural citizens. While many of these closures have occurred as consequences of regionalization, a strategy to regionally centralize healthcare services, many studies investigating outcomes of regionalization have focused on costs and medical endpoints rather than the direct experiences of the rural patients affected. In this study, we aimed to understand and document the experiences of rural residents accessing procedural and maternity care both locally and away from home. This study is part of a …

Delivery Of Patient Education And Support Using An Online Digital Platform For Patients Undergoing Primary Hip And Knee Replacement: The Patient’S Perspectives, Paul N. Baker, Natalie L. Clark

Patient Experience Journal

The aim of the present evaluation was to evaluate the use of an online digital platform (ODP) to deliver patient education and support (PES) to patients undergoing total hip replacement (THR) and total knee replacement (TKR) surgery. Six objectives were outlined to assess the following areas: patient engagement; ease of use; understanding of information; quantity of information; aid of recovery; suggestions for improvements. A qualitative service evaluation of the ODP. Participants included patients who were registered to the platform for THR or TKR, were at least 90 days post-surgery and had accessed at least one carepac. Interviews followed a semi-structured …

Patient Experience Rounds (Per): Real-Time Feedback To Improve The Patient Experience And Quality Of Care, Amber Moore, Caroline Moore, Lydia Bunker, Barbara Sarnoff

Patient Experience Journal

While patient feedback is critical to improving the patient experience and clinical care, we are currently limited in our ability to collect feedback in real-time from hospitalized patients. This paper describes our experience and outcomes implementing Patient Experience Rounds (PER). Our model uses trained former patients or family members as volunteers to collect feedback in real-time. Through this feedback, we were able to identify areas for improvement, make adjustments in the moment, and provide targeted feedback to providers. A total of 321 patient encounters were recorded by eight PER advisors. Nursing staff received the highest percentage of positive comments. 49% …

Factors Associated With Patient Rating Of Physician Communication Effectiveness And Satisfaction In Musculoskeletal Care, Amirreza Fatehi, Amanda Gonzalez Md, David Bandell, Joost Kortlever, Léon Rijk, David Ring

Patient Experience Journal

Effective communication is associated with adherence to healthy habits. This study sought factors associated with communication effectiveness and satisfaction with musculoskeletal specialty care in order to inform efforts to improve communication effectiveness using measurement, feedback, and coaching. After a new or return upper extremity specialist visit, 146 adult patients completed a survey recording demographics, measures of catastrophic thinking in response to nociception, symptoms of depression, and symptoms of anxiety, and they rated communication effectiveness (5 questions answered on a 4-point Likert scale) and satisfaction with the visit (slider with anchors of 0 and 100). Patients also provided text answers to …

Exploring Peer Mentoring In Pediatric Transition: Perspectives Of Different Stakeholders About Accompanying Patients In Gastroenterology, Guillaume Dumais-Lévesque, Marie-Pascale Pomey

Patient Experience Journal

The literature identifies several issues in the pediatric transition, such as the lack of coordination between pediatric and adult settings and young patients who are not exercising independence in the self-management of their disease. The objective of this study is to explore the potential for a pediatric transition program in gastroenterology, introducing an accompanying patient program to support the transition. A qualitative case study was conducted, including semi-structured focus groups and individual interviews with each group involved in the pediatric transition between two centres in Quebec. A thematic analysis of the collected data was performed using QDA Miner v5.1. In …

The Rapid Increase In Telemedicine Visits During Covid-19, Chelsea Johnson, Kathryn Taff, Brian R. Lee, Amanda Montalbano

Patient Experience Journal

Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, facilitated telemedicine encounters were available at outreach locations; however, our tertiary children’s hospital had not invested widely in direct to patient telemedicine. Our daily pediatric subspecialty visits dropped from an average of 2066 visits a day prior to COVID-19 in our community to 1000 patients a day during the study period. Over the four-week period from April 15 to May 12, 2020, patient and family experience ratings of percentage of positive responses (9 or 10) on the provider rating 0-10 scale between telemedicine and in-person visits were compared for our pediatric subspecialty clinics using a …

Is This Really Happening? Family-Centered Care During Covid-19: People Before Policy, Terri Savino, Karri Crispino

Patient Experience Journal

In the middle of a global pandemic, hospitals created policies for visitor restrictions to reduce the transmission of coronavirus to protect patients and staff and developed protocols allowing only one support person to call the critical care unit for patient updates. Late on a Tuesday afternoon, the Manager of Patient Experience received a phone call asking her to call Karri, the wife of one of our patients who was on a ventilator. Karri was struggling with updating her mother-in-law because she was very upset with the news she received, making it difficult to call her husband’s mom. Karri asked the …

Implementing Inter-Professional Patient-Family Centered Plan Of Care Meetings On An Inpatient Hospital Unit, Nicolas Hernandez, Alice Fornari, Sage Rose, Leanne Tortez

Patient Experience Journal

Inpatient plan of care meetings support efforts to encourage collaborative practice and patient-family centered care and result in an effective strategy to enhance communication and patient satisfaction. Clinical team members participated in patient/family centered plan of care meetings at a community hospital in a selected inpatient unit with full time hospitalist physicians. Quantitative data were gathered pre/post implementation from the external Hospital Consumer Assessment of Health Care Providers (HCAHPS) survey. HCAHPS data were collected independently, specifically for questions related to communication between patients, family members/guardians and the medical team and also the effects of care transition. There was a slow …

Finding Common Threads: How Patients, Physicians And Nurses Perceive The Patient Gown, Christy M. Lucas, Cheryl Dellasega

Patient Experience Journal

Evidence-based care is standard practice in medicine, but the patient gown has fallen outside the scope of scholarly research. The current gown renders a patient vulnerable, diminishing patients’ sense of identity, agency, and dignity with its one-size-fits-none design. The impact on providers is similarly neglected. Our objective was to explore how patients and providers derive meaning from patient gowns. A convenience sample at an academic medical center was interviewed utilizing a standardized framework developed by a medical student and two PhD-prepared researchers with experience in qualitative methods. The study was inductive in nature, seeking to understand perceptions of the patient …

Refugees' Perceptions Of Primary Care: What Makes A Good Doctor's Visit?, Anne Mutitu, Bev Zabler, Jeana M. Holt

Patient Experience Journal

Redesigning primary care is a national priority, as the United States (US) struggles with issues of poor access, high cost, and suboptimal quality. Refugees are among the populations who suffer from America’s disjointed health care system, resulting in disproportionate health disparities. Although there are many studies on refugee health, few share refugees' perceptions of primary care. We asked local refugees who were seen for primary care services at a midwestern academic nurse-led clinic, what makes a good doctor's visit?  The clinic served as the hub of a federally funded refugee Community Centered Health Home (CCHH) pilot project. This qualitative study …