Health Policy Commons^™

Barriers And Enablers Of Patient And Family Centred Care In An Australian Acute Care Hospital: Perspectives Of Health Managers, Bradley Lloyd, Mark Elkins, Lesley Innes

Patient Experience Journal

The aim of this study was to identify and explore organisational barriers to, and enablers of, patient and family centred care within an Australian acute care hospital from the perspective of that hospital’s management staff. A qualitative study, incorporating purposive sampling and semi-structured interviews was undertaken in a 215-bed metropolitan acute care public hospital in Sydney, Australia. Fifteen health managers from a broad range of professional groups, including Medicine, Nursing, Allied Health and non-clinical services were interviewed. Interview data were recorded, transcribed, and analysed for key themes using the Framework Approach. The key barriers to patient and family centred care …

Developing The First Pan-Canadian Acute Care Patient Experiences Survey, Salima Hadibhai, Jeanie Lacroix, Kira Leeb

Patient Experience Journal

The Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI) in partnership with stakeholders sought to develop the first pan-Canadian patient experiences survey for inpatient care (CPES-IC). The goal was to provide a national survey standard for comparative patient experience measures to facilitate benchmarking for quality improvement. A cognitive and pilot testing study design was performed using survey data from adult inpatient care settings. Participants included the inter-jurisdictional members (IJ), survey subject matter experts and CIHI (The Group). Cognitive testing of the survey took place in three Canadian jurisdictions in English and French languages. Thirty-nine individuals participated in one-on-one interviews. During pilot testing, …

First, Do No Harm: The Patient's Experience Of Avoidable Suffering As Harm, Ashley Bauer Mha

Patient Experience Journal

Although my entire career has been spent in Patient Experience, nothing I have learned from data, evidence-based practice, or experience-based correlations, has been near as impactful as what I learned from being a patient. This article discusses my own experiences as a patient. I ask readers to consider instances of avoidable suffering as sources of harm that negatively impact patient perceptions, erode trust in care providers and healthcare delivery systems, and create barriers to engaging patients in their care. Recognizing how avoidable suffering creates harm challenges traditional views of Patient Experience as hospitality-based “soft skills” and helps to establish patient …

Elevating The Discourse On Experience In Healthcare’S Uncertain Times, Jason A. Wolf Phd, Cpxp

Patient Experience Journal

Over the last five years, we have been inspired by the breadth of contributions that have helped shape the experience landscape through PXJ as well as the reach that the conversation on patient experience has had. Both the authors and readers of PXJ reinforce that the conversation on patient experience and the human experience in healthcare is not one dominated by national intent or even policy. While for some motivation has come in some part from mandated action, for most tackling this idea in healthcare is it grounded in two core realities. The first, in healthcare at its core we …

Call For Submissions - Special Issue July 2019: The Role Of Technology And Innovation In Patient Experience, Patient Experience Journal

Patient Experience Journal

Patient Experience Journal (PXJ) is excited to announce the call for submissions for its July 2019 special issue on the topic of the role of technology in patient & family experience. A focus on technology and innovation will be essential in healthcare experience, requiring new ways of thinking and doing and the technologies and tools to ensure efficiencies, expand capacities and extend boundaries of care.

This special issue is open to all authors conducting cutting-edge research, implementing innovative practices or with powerful experiences to share around efforts in either creating or implementing technology focused on positively impacting the patient experience …

Family Experience Tracers: Patient Family Advisor Led Interviews Generating Detailed Qualitative Feedback To Influence Performance Improvement, Kathryn Taff, Sheryl Chadwick, Deejo Miller

Patient Experience Journal

Patient Family Advisors (PFAs) are integral partners in quality improvement processes at Children’s Mercy Kansas City. Mimicking Joint Commission patient tracers, the Family Experience Tracer program was created to gather perspectives from end users of care and provide valuable insights regarding the patient experience. The Patient and Family Engagement team collaborates with departmental and organizational leadership to define the scope of the tracer project and determine meaningful topics to elicit feedback from patients and families. Tracers are conducted across the continuum of care and are led by a Patient Family Advisor to establish an immediate peer relationship. Patients and families …

What Constitutes The Patient Experience Of Children? Findings From The Photo Elicitation And The Video Diary Study, Nina Karisalmi, Hanna Stenhammar, Johanna Kaipio

Patient Experience Journal

Patient experience (PX) is getting attention among researchers and healthcare service providers, but little is known about the experiences of child patients and how to explore those. This paper reports findings from a study in which two participatory research methods, photo elicitation and video diary, were applied to investigate the elements of children’s PX in the context of children’s hospital. The aim was to find out what elements constitute the PX of children aged 7–16 years. The research data were gathered in 2016–2017. Twenty-two child patients participated in the study: eight children aged between 7 and 10 in the photo …

Tertiary Care Centres Must Do More For Patients With Unknown Conditions: Lessons Learned From A Child, Guido Filler, Lana Rothfels

Patient Experience Journal

Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome (POTS) is a debilitating disease with a commonly non-uniform and unspecific presentation that makes diagnosis difficult. A twelve-year-old girl, recently diagnosed with Addison’s Disease, was referred to paediatric nephrology for Fludrocortisone-induced nocturnal hypertension. She had fallen off the growth curve for both height and weight from the 50th percentile at birth to below the 5th percentile at presentation. The severity and multitude of her symptoms, including muscle weakness, poor body control, dizziness, light headedness, persistent fatigue, excessive sweating, tachycardia, chronic constipation and recurrent infection hinted at the unusual nature of this case of Addison’s. At the …

Breaking Bad News And The Importance Of Compassionate Palliative Care Of The Infant, William S. Sessions Ii, Sean Y. Kow, Elizabeth Waldrop, Kayle Stevenson, Ayo Olanrewaju, Thu Tran, Mubariz Naqvi

Patient Experience Journal

Bad news to parents regarding their infant is information that negatively impacts the parent’s feelings and view of the present and/or future. It is implemented in situations with feelings of no hope or those that induce a threat to a parent’s mental and physical well-being. The term is difficult to define as it is based on parent’s subjective feelings. However, it is important to be aware of the impact of bad news as it can cause severe anguish and stress on the parent’s emotional stability. The style of delivering bad news has a significant impact on the physician/parent relationship and …

Partners For Excellence: Committed To Meaningful Partnerships With Patients And Families In Pediatrics, Rachel Biblow, Msw, Sara Toomey Md, Mphil, Mph, Msc

Patient Experience Journal

Although the landscape in pediatrics continues to shift and change, one of the keys to our continued success remains the same… it’s about partnership. It’s clear the element of partnership is well woven through our organizations as illustrated by many of us having patient and family advisory councils, family consultants, and family partners. While this foundation is strong and essential, we must do more to truly listen, recognize the value of patient and family involvement, act upon the information shared, openly discuss issues, and strive for better together. True partnership with patients and families requires us to shift the paradigm …

Lessons For Patient Experience From The Voices Of Pediatrics And Children’S Hospitals, Jason A. Wolf Phd, Cpxp

Patient Experience Journal

This special issue on patient & family experience in children’s hospitals and pediatric care underlines pediatrics’ position as a leader in the experience journey. In pediatrics and children’s hospitals significant efforts are made to the ensure the environment is welcoming and comfortable, there is a commitment to communicating to patients – the children that are cared for – in a way they can understand, and there is a clear intention of engaging family members as an integral part of the care experience. In acknowledging that this is a special issue on pediatrics, we would miss a significant opportunity if we …

Nursing Transfer Of Accountability At The Bedside: Partnering With Patients To Pilot A New Initiative In Ontario Community Hospitals, Kristina Ba Miller, Aden Hamza, Kateryna Metersky, Dianne M. Gaffney

Patient Experience Journal

The transfer of accountability (TOA) for a patient from one nurse to another at change of shift is an important opportunity to exchange essential patient care information, as well as to enhance the safety and quality of patient care. This study was undertaken to explore nurses’, patients’ and family members’ perceptions associated with the implementation of bedside nurse to nurse TOA. Focus groups were conducted pre-implementation (two with nurses and two with patients and family members) and post-implementation (six with nurses and two with patients and family members). The focus groups were audio-recorded, transcribed and analysed using directed content analysis. …

The Sherpa Meets Maslow: Medicine And The Hierarchy Of Needs, Rana Lee Adawi Awdish Md Fccp

Patient Experience Journal

A critical care physician returning to medicine after her own critical illness experiences a crisis of orientation. She finds she can no longer serve as the Voice of Medicine. She replaces the former construct with a more humble model, in which the physician serves as an intermediary. She equates this new role to that of the Sherpas of Nepal. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs forms the mountain, as she reimagines her role in her patients’ lives.

The Consumer Has Spoken: Patient Experience Is Now Healthcare’S Core Differentiator, Jason A. Wolf Phd

Patient Experience Journal

In just a few days we will celebrate Patient Experience Journal’s (PXJ) 4^th anniversary since our inaugural publication. In these 4 short and quick years we have seen 163 articles published in our first four volumes that have stirred a significant focus on building the evidence base in patient experience. Not only has PXJ served as the central clearing house for thoughtful research, measurable cases, and insightful narratives, but it also has reinforced the breadth and depth of what patient experience truly encompasses. This integrated view was reinforced by the very voices of healthcare’s consumers in The Beryl Institute’s …

Patient Experience In The Behavioral Health Setting: Key Best Practices Throughout An Organizational Journey, Mark L. D'Agostino, Tena Vizner, Daniel Wald, Linda Espinosa, Rick Evans

Patient Experience Journal

NewYork-Presbyterian/Westchester Division, a clinical affiliate of Weill Cornell Medicine, is a 260-bed hospital providing inpatient and outpatient behavioral health care for children, adolescents, adults and older adults. From 2004-2010 the hospital’s patient experience scores on the Press Ganey® Inpatient Psychiatry Survey improved from the 14th to 53rd percentile nationally. We primarily attribute this to joining the Planetree® Affilliate Network. Planetree is a mission based not-for-profit organization that partners with healthcare organizations around the world and across the care continuum to represent the patient voice and advance how professional caregivers engage with patients and families. In 2011, hourly rounding was redesigned …

“We Were Learning Together And It Felt Good That Way.” A Case Study Of A Participatory Group Music Program For Cancer Patients, Laurie Sadowski

Patient Experience Journal

Though there are similarities to music therapy, the field of community music in healthcare, while in its infancy, is steadily growing. This case study explored how semi-formal, active music-making can play a role in illness and recovery and provide patients with a sense of voice, connection, and community, and the efficacy of community music programming in a hospital. Six participants began and three participants completed a 6-week music class learning the ukulele. Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) was used as a method for data analysis from semi-structured pre-questionnaires, transcribed classes, transcribed post-interviews, and weekly questionnaires from both the participants and the …

Turning A Blind Eye: How Lack Of Communication With Er Nurses Nearly Cost A Patient Permanent Vision Loss, Kenneth Royal, April Kedrowicz

Patient Experience Journal

This narrative presents a case in which a patient was treated for conjunctivitis, but a breakdown in several layers of communication (between the hospital and the patient, and between hospital personnel) resulted in multiple medical errors that nearly costs the patient permanent vision loss. This real-life case underscores how simple communication errors may lead to life-altering consequences. Recommendations for improving communication to ensure similar errors do not happen to others are provided.

Accelerating Patient Experience Performance: Collaboration And Engagement As Drivers For Success, Sidney Klajner

Patient Experience Journal

The efforts at Albert Einstein Jewish Hospital in São Paulo, Brazil have been focused on principles of excellence for many years as realized in engagement in and commitment to some of the leading global healthcare practices over the last decade. In reinforcing a commitment to excellence and continuous improvement, the patient experience efforts at Einstein have evolved from an operating structure for patient experience efforts to a truly integrated program for action in address all elements in the organization impacting and ultimately driving patient experience outcomes. By grounded efforts in core evidence-based practice, while engaging the hearts and minds of …

The Patchwork Perspective: A New View For Patient Experience, Jason A. Wolf Phd

Patient Experience Journal

As Patient Experience Journal has continued to contribute to the expanding patient experience conversation, we too recognize this has been a significant year of progress for the patient experience movement. This progress has emerged in a number of ways in research, practice and programs that reveal a comprehensive and integrated approach is now more than ever a central consideration in a commitment to experience. This idea of interwoven efforts, begins to frame an image – a patchwork of clear, critical and comprehensive pieces that while operating distinctly each have value, yet when bringing them together have an exponential opportunity to …

Call For Submissions. Special Issue – July 2018: Patient & Family Experience In Children’S Hospitals And Pediatric Care, Patient Experience Journal

Patient Experience Journal

Patient Experience Journal (PXJ) is excited to announce a call for submission for its special issue scheduled for July 2018 on the topic of patient & family experience in children’s hospitals and pediatric care. This special issue is open to all authors conducting cutting-edge research, implementing innovative practices or with powerful experiences to share around efforts in either children’s hospitals or pediatric care. It is encouraged that articles submitted deal directly with efforts in those care settings. The issue will look for pieces that address evidence-based efforts at improvement, practices that have impact on outcomes or stories that reflect …

Experience-Based Co-Design: A Method For Patient And Family Engagement In System-Level Quality Improvement, Bianca Fucile, Erica Bridge, Charlene Duliban, Madelyn P. Law Dr.

Patient Experience Journal

Integrating patient and family member needs, wants and preferences in healthcare is of utmost importance. However, a standardized patient and family engagement model to understand these needs, wants and preferences in order to translate into high quality improvement activities is lacking. Experience based co-design (EBCD) is an approach that enables patients, family members and healthcare providers to co-design improvement initiatives together. In this study, EBCD was employed to: 1) assess the current state of information and educational resources at a local oncology center and 2) partner with patients, family members, and healthcare providers to create quality improvement initiatives targeting identified …

Integrating Person Directed Care Into The Client Experience, Tammy L. Marshall Ms., Joann P. Reinhardt, Orah Burack, Audrey S. Weiner

Patient Experience Journal

Culture Change leaders in long term care have identified creative ways to implement a model of Person Directed Care to improve the client experience by providing choice, instilling dignity, and fostering deep relationships among its community members. One organization created an environment of care called ”The Small House” and educated its’ workforce using the Green House® Project Legacy Alignment program to redesign the organizational structure, experience and environment. Interviews were conducted with elders, staff, and family members (N=20) about their experiences living, working or visiting a Small House as compared to experiences in their previous dwelling, a traditional nursing home. …

Lack Of Patient Involvement In Care Decisions And Not Receiving Written Discharge Instructions Are Associated With Unplanned Readmissions Up To One Year, Kyle A. Kemp, Hude Quan, Maria J. Santana

Patient Experience Journal

This retrospective, cross-sectional study examined the relationship between aspects of inpatient communication and discharge instructions and unplanned, all-cause readmissions using individual-level data up to one-year post-discharge. Patients completed the Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HCAHPS) telephone survey within 6 weeks of hospital discharge in Alberta, Canada. Survey data were linked to corresponding inpatient records. Independent variables included selected demographic characteristics, clinical variables, and five survey questions: a) patient involvement in care decisions, b) receiving written information at discharge, c) understanding the purpose of taking medications, d) understanding responsibility for one’s health, and e) discussing help needed when …

Pushing The Boundaries Of Patient Experience, Jason A. Wolf Phd

Patient Experience Journal

This special issue is designed to push the boundaries of patient experience a little farther. Beyond just examples of applying the critical principles of patient and family centered care or even practices of patient engagement, we have been pushed to move further down the perspective of partnership, to the era of “doing with” in which healthcare now finds itself. The idea of involvement as the descriptor selected to frame this issue, was due to its broad and representative nature. It reflects all the words on involving patients mentioned above, but gets further along to participation and ownership (or activation as …

An Experience Of Practitioners Navigating The Role Of Patient/Caregiver, Susan M. Shaw, Rain Lamdin

Patient Experience Journal

This journey involved one of us having (repeat) intraspinal surgery in a country far from home but of a similar culture and with the same first language. The carer travelled across the world to be present during the hospital stay. We kept a journal during our admission, and following discharge realised there were significant differences between how we had documented our experience and the record presented in the clinical notes. The particular examples we present illustrate the relationships, rules and issues that we navigated. We share our experience in the form of moments from our journal, some of them alongside …

Reconnecting The Mind And Body: A Pilot Study Of Developing Compassion For Persistent Pain, Sarah L. Parry Dr, Zoey Malpus Dr

Patient Experience Journal

As an alternative to the more typical cognitive behavioural approach to pain management, a novel pain management group based on the principles of compassionate mind training was developed for a particular sub-group of patients. Participants were patients of a community pain clinic, who were invited to participate in this alternative approach to pain management. The eight-week Compassion in Pain Groups included psychoeducation around persistent pain, the underlying principles of compassionate mind training, practical exercises such as diaphragmatic breathing, followed by a series of compassionate imagery exercises and group discussions. Both quantitative and qualitative analyses were undertaken to gain further insights …

Experiences Of Communication Barriers Between Physicians And Immigrant Patients: A Systematic Review And Thematic Synthesis, Salim Ahmed, Sonya Lee, Nusrat Shommu, Nahid Rumana, Tanvir Turin

Patient Experience Journal

Frequent immigration of peoples from outside often challenges various systems of any country; healthcare sector is the most confronted one. One of the most prominent reasons for this confrontation is communication gap between physicians and immigrant patients. In this systematic narrative review, we studied existing literature on physician-immigrant patient communication. We systematically searched the repositories of literature and followed some criteria to select literature. We selected 32 literatures for information extraction. Three themes emerged from the synthesis: Physicians’ viewpoint about communication barrier with their immigrant patients, Immigrant patients’ viewpoint about the communication barrier with their physicians, and Interpreter as a …

“Quiet At Night”: Reduced Overnight Vital Sign Monitoring Linked To Both Safety And Improvements In Patients’ Perception Of Hospital Sleep Quality, Kevin Stiver, Nandini Sharma, Kayla Geller, Lisa Smith, Julie Stephens, Emile Daoud, Susan Moffatt-Bruce, Ernest Mazzaferri

Patient Experience Journal

Obtaining middle of the night vital signs is disruptive to sleep and not founded on evidence-based medicine. We sought to investigate the perception of quality of sleep and overall satisfaction during a hospital stay between an intervention group where overnight night vital signs were not obtained and a standard of care group where overnight vital signs were obtained every four hours. We also monitored for adverse events in the intervention and standard group. Low-risk observational stay patients with a planned cardiac procedure were eligible for this study. After consent, patients were randomized to the intervention or standard group. Participants were …

Engaging Rural Residents In Patient-Centered Health Care Research, Michelle Levy, Cheryl Holmes, Amy Mendenhall, Whitney Grube

Patient Experience Journal

Patient engagement is increasingly recognized as a critical component in improving health care. Yet, there remains a gap in our understanding of the intricacies of rural patient engagement in health-related research. This article describes the process of engaging rural patients, caregivers and broader stakeholders to actively participate in an exploratory effort to understand rural perspectives around the patient-centered medical home model. Highlights of the project’s engagement activities demonstrate how giving voice to rural residents can have a significant impact. Lessons learned point to the importance of six factors for successful engagement of rural residents as partners in health care research: …

Evaluating Variables Of Patient Experience And The Correlation With Design, Dyutima Jha, Amy Keller Frye, Jennifer Schlimgen

Patient Experience Journal

The objective of this paper was to understand the variables of patient experience by analyzing recent and relevant evidence and to identify design solutions within the hospital environment that positively impact those variables. A systematic review of literature published from 2008-present was conducted to identify variables that contribute to patient experience benefits. Identified variables were documented and categorized into a design, organizational, and outcome variable matrix. Interviews were conducted with professionals from healthcare institutions, architecture firms and organizations committed to improving the patient experience. Data from healthcare facilities, with high patient experience scores, was also examined to derive effective design …