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My entire life has been
spent around hospitals and illness. My dad was a “professional
patient” with a long list of ailments and many hospitalizations,
surgeries and health challenges. My mom and I were “professional
visitors” and family care givers. During the past 35 years in
health administration, it has been reinforced often to me that
what I learned as a child is still true today: It is essential
that we effectively listen to patients and their families.
Listening to patients and their families and sharing their
stories is a powerful and effective way to discover how we can
provide better care. It is clearly a vital part of Lee Memorial
Health System’s SafeLee initiative—a cultural transformation
centered on patient safety as our No. 1 core value—as well as
strengthening the overall patient and family experience.
Effective listening improves care and makes everyone feel
better.
Recently, I read an article in Hospitals & Health Networks, a
publication by the American Hospital Association, entitled,
“Hearing Patients Tell Their Stories.” The featured hospital
shared the results of lessons and changes that resulted from
conducting monthly inpatient focus groups to identify ways to
strengthen the overall patient experience.
These focus groups revealed patient concerns that were
relatively simple to address, such as implementing a “plan of
the day,” where a multi-disciplinary team comes to each
patient’s bedside in the morning to explain the day’s care, so
patients better understand, and installing whiteboards in
patient rooms for staff to write their names at the start of a
shift, so patients know who is providing their care.
While our health system is already doing most of the activities
that this hospital’s staff learned from their focus groups, the
real message is making changes based on “listening” to patients
and families.
As a part of SafeLee, we are now sharing patient safety messages
at all our staff, physician and Board of Directors meetings,
which help each of us learn from another’s experience. I hope we
can all put a little extra effort into listening more closely
when interacting with patients and their families, whether it is
during their stays with us or after. You never know what a
simple conversation might reveal.
How about this story that I received recently from a patient:
Dear Mr. Nathan,
Recently, after a full battery of cardiac tests, I was about to
be discharged from HealthPark [Medical Center] and Matt Taylor
[Emergency Department Physician Assistant] walked into my room.
I explained I know my body and although the staff had been
extremely professional, something had been missed. Matt went and
elicited the help of Dr. Mitko Badov [Internal Medicine,
Cogent], who listened carefully, asked pertinent questions and
discovered an anomaly in an EKG. He ordered a catheterization.
It was discovered I had an 80 [percent] blockage of my right
artery and a stent was implanted. That is medicine.
I owe these two professionals my life and they will always be in
my prayers. The hospital and staff were all wonderful to me
during my stay. Thanks to everyone for my life.
Yes, “listening” is powerful medicine!
Peace,
Jim Nathan
President, Lee Memorial Health System
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