This week, we are celebrating Patient Experience Week, which is a time for us to honor our faculty and staff and highlight the extraordinary dedication and commitment to high-quality and compassionate care that we deliver to our patients and how we, at Stony Brook Medicine, work together as a team to achieve this goal.
Our guiding cultural framework for the patient experience is Compassionate Connected Care. We use this evidence-based care model to reduce patient suffering by addressing patients’ unmet needs across the clinical, operational, behavioral and cultural aspects of patient care. These domains exist across all settings, services and disciplines, which reinforces the idea that every one of us plays a role in the patient experience.
We have implemented Compassionate Connected Care training throughout dozens of disciplines in all three hospitals, with more than 10,000 individuals trained and counting. We continue to focus on our key drivers: physician and nurse communication, environment of care, which includes cleanliness and quietness, and staff worked together to care for you.
I’m proud to report that since 2022 when we introduced the Compassionate Connected Care Physician Module, our HCAHPS (Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems) score improved to 81.3 percent over the course of four consecutive months. As a result, more than 80 percent of our patients indicated that during their stay, their doctors always treated them with courtesy and respect, listened carefully to them and explained things in a way they could understand.
Within Nursing, we’ve incorporated Compassionate Connected Care as the care delivery model for Stony Brook Medicine Nursing’s Professional Practice Model, and it is a foundational component of our Magnet journey. As a result, we have also seen similar gains in our scores for nurse satisfaction. This year, specifically in the HCAHPS question, “Nurses Listened Carefully to You,” we improved from a score of 72.98 (34th percentile) to 75.5 (53rd percentile).
Other enhancements that we’ve made to improve the patient experience at Stony Brook Medicine include:
- The launch of the quarterly Schwartz Rounds for Stony Brook University Hospital faculty and staff. This safe, multidisciplinary forum allows caregivers to discuss the emotional and social issues that occur while caring for patients.
- Patient Experience Quarterly Recognition Award, which is given to the department/unit with an overall rating quarterly score that is most improved as compared to the previous quarter.
- The Spiritual Care Department introduced a new Clinical Pastoral Education program, which welcomed its first group of students at the beginning of the year. The program is the only one of its kind in Suffolk County accredited by the Association for Clinical Pastoral Education.
- Newly hired staff and expanded coverage within the Patient Advocacy Department, as well as three new Spanish interpreters. Additional Concierge coverage (24/7) was added, and an improved visitor management system was introduced.
- Return of our hospital volunteers and expanded patient education programming for patients.
We often hear from patients, who following their stay at the hospital, share their appreciation about their care team. This week, we posted many of these “Moments That Matter” compliments throughout the hospital and on our Scala digital monitors. Here’s a sampling of the comments we received:
- “Everyone made me feel like my safety and health was prime and that they would do everything possible to make me feel comfortable and safe. The whole experience was smooth: All staff worked well as a team, communication was clear and they me feel very reassured that I was in very good hands!”
- “I was very anxious about having surgery. Everyone worked together to give me an amazing experience. I felt very well taken care of. Thank you to all the care providers, nursing staff, nursing assistants, housekeeping, transport team, and anyone else who helped in my care.”
- “Always made me feel I was part of their team, and that I was their only patient.”
- “Can’t say enough how amazed I was with everyone. They were my TEAM.”
We know that the patient experience and employee engagement are closely connected, so it’s important that we take care of ourselves to ensure an optimal experience for our patients. Patient Experience Week focuses on many activities and offerings that do just that — offer support and care to our faculty and staff, and I hope that you’ll take advantage of the many events planned. You can learn more about them by visiting ThePulse or reading Stony Brook Health Beat.
Patient Experience Week also marks the beginning of three important national observances to celebrate, recognize and support our faculty and staff, and is followed by Nurses Week (May 6 to 12) and Hospital Week (May 7 to 13). We’ll be sharing information about the events of those weeks soon, and I encourage you to participate in as many activities that you can.
If you have any questions about our Patient Experience strategy, please email Nicole Rossol, our Chief Patient Experience Officer. You can also visit ThePulse to view our Patient Experience section.
On behalf of the leadership team at Stony Brook Medicine, I want to express my sincere gratitude to you for all that you do to ensure the compassionate care of our patients every day. Thank you.
Carol