Celebrating Patient Experience Week
A patient’s experience at the hospital is impacted and influenced by every face they see and every team they meet, but for one team in the hospital, the patient experience is at the root of their roles.
The quality and patient experience team at St. Mary’s is responsible for a number of things related to understanding and improving the patients’ experiences such as listening to positive and constructive feedback, ensuring we have a survey process for patient feedback after they leave the hospital, supporting patients in advocating for themselves, keeping them connected with loved ones, and sometimes just providing them with a safe listening ear. This is a role that is mandatory for hospitals to have as noted in the Excellent Care for All legislation.
Patrice, the Patient Experience Coordinator, is the main point of contact for all incoming inquiries from patients and their families. This includes answering emails, phone calls and even being the redirect for comments and questions that come in through the hospital’s social media channels.
“I think one of the most important aspects of this team, and especially my role, is being able to listen to the experiences of our patients and their families – the good, the bad and the indifferent,” says Patrice. “Often, patients or families need to connect with someone live and they just want to get things off of their chest. Sometimes they want to see action taken or corrections made for their experience, some want to share a compliment for their positive experience, and sometimes they don’t want anything – they just want someone to listen.”
In January 2021, supported by funding for COVID, a new role was introduced to the team with the addition of three patient experience guides, Jessica, Melissa, and Ashini. This program, developed by two of the guides themselves, was created to support the increasing need to help patients connect with their families when they couldn’t have visitors. They are an additional care team member that supports patients on their journey to healing.
The guides help facilitate Zoom calls with patients and their families, but also help distribute patient surveys at discharge and, when they are able to, provide social visits for patients who don’t have visitors. They will also deliver crosswords, puzzles or newspapers taking them around the floors to our patients. Since January 2021, this program has had over 40 iPads generously donated through the Foundation to support the social calls. Due to the generous donation, patients are actually able to book an iPad to use on their own, to play games or stream shows. This is one way that St. Mary’s is working to provide more equitable service to all of our patients.
In addition to the guides and patient experience coordinator, the team also includes a Quality Coordinator, Helen, who focuses on data analysis and leads accreditation and research for decision making. This role plays a big part in utilizing the feedback from patients to navigate the decision-making process.
Julie rounds out the team as Manager, Quality & Patient Experience. Julie plays a key role in furthering our commitment to patient and family-centred care, aligning the work we do with the strategic plan, and ensuring we are always striving to achieve the highest quality of care. Whether bringing new ideas to the table, supporting the team, or providing new opportunities, Julie works to ensure we are bringing exceptional, quality care to the community.
“This team puts their hearts into the work they do,” says Julie. “They each find meaning in the work they do, and they are always looking for ways to add value and help patients and the clinical care teams. This team is often a bridge between patients, their families, and the clinical team. They all go above and beyond for our patients, staff, and community. The entire team wants the same thing for our patients: to feel heard. They are one part of providing exceptional care at St. Mary’s.”
In addition to this team, the Patient and Family Advisory Committee plays an important role in quality and patient experience improvement. This group of individuals have had previous experience with the healthcare system, either as patients themselves or through close family members. Their experiences, bring an insight to the table that we as healthcare workers don’t necessarily have helping inform the decisions we make.
“It is important to have them involved in making decisions at the hospital, as it ensures that we see things from every side, especially how it impacts the patient,” says Patrice. “Their views, opinions and suggestions are based on something they have gone through, and it is great to hear the areas in which we can improve.”
One of the teams that the patient experience team is starting to build a more collaborative approach with is our Foundation. “Partnering with the Foundation is extremely important, for both of us, as we can support each other in highlighting and collecting patient stories,” says Patrice. “The better experience people have, the more likely they are to have a conversation with the Foundation and perhaps support the needs of the hospital. Sometimes the Foundation receives positive stories before I do, or vice versa, so we share those and lean on each other for support. It is important that we highlight the positive experiences, but also crucial to ensure that they happen in the first place.”
The patient experience team is a central place that brings together all the interactions that have occurred throughout the hospital for a patient, both positive and negative, and creates a safe place for families and patients to reach out to when they need or want someone to listen. They are instrumental in maintaining connections between patients and their families, and sometimes they create new connections.
Thank you for everything you do to support exceptional care for the patients and families at St. Mary’s!
Check out some of our amazing patient experience stories from the Foundation.