Ensuring Exceptional Patient Care (2024)

In my role as a breast cancer surgeon and director of a breast care center, I have developed a vested interest in ensuring that each patient receives comprehensive, patient-centered care and a positive care experience. Not only is it the right thing to do, it is a core component of competitive strategy in today’s healthcare environment. I can also attest from my own journey as a patient how important the care experience is to overall well-being and recovery.

A recently published systematic review demonstrated that patient experience was positively associated with patient safety and clinical effectiveness across a wide range of disease areas, clinical settings, population groups and outcome measures. The findings provide strong evidence for including patient experience as a core component of healthcare quality.

Ensuring Exceptional Patient Care (1)

It may be important to further define “patient experience”. Patient experience is not about making healthcare into Disney World or the Ritz Carlton. Rather, patient experience gets to the core of our values in healthcare. It means providing care that is free from harm, minimizes redundancy and waste, allows timely access to needed services, follows best practices, and incorporates patients’ preferences and treatment priorities. The following are four proven strategies for ensuring this type of exceptional care experience.

Communicate: Communication is the cornerstone of excellence in patient care. Our communication should be timely, transparent, and tailored to each patient's understanding. It is through our communication that we can also convey empathy and compassion. Never underestimate the power of saying the right word at the right time. The goal is to produce a high-quality interaction during which patients feel valued, listened to, and receive clear explanations. Studies have shown that simply sitting down at the bedside with a patient, instead of standing, improves patient satisfaction, physician-patient interactions and patients’ understanding of their condition.

Accommodate: If communication is the cornerstone of excellent patient care, then our ability to accommodate the needs of our patients is the central pillar. This includes ensuring coordination of care services, easy and convenient healthcare, clean and quiet healing environments, attentiveness to symptom management and supportive care. The focus is providing patient-centered care, where every aspect of the health system is optimally designed to be of service to our patients. To be successful, we must incorporate patients into our care design committees in order to truly build systems that meet their needs.

Respect: Showing respect for our patients’ values, preferences and treatment goals is the foundation of trust and rapport. Treat patients with dignity, be sensitive to cultural values, and honor patients’ autonomy. We should strive to involve patients in decision-making by seeking their input. Respect is also demonstrated by asking patients how they would like to be referred to, and showing consideration with sensitive information in shared rooms. We are guests in out patients’ lives, and should act accordingly.

Engage: Empowering our patients to be engaged in self-care is paramount to improving clinical outcomes. When we educate and engage patients about their conditions, they not only show superior outcomes, but also greater satisfaction with care. Even the act of verbally explaining the process of care to patients leads to improved treatment adherence and reduced anxiety.

Finally, engagement also refers to the role of healthcare professionals in care transformation. Meaningful innovations in healthcare will come from those of us on the front lines of patient care. We all have the responsibility of transforming healthcare into what we know it needs to be for our patients. Real change lies with individuals, not institutions. It will require all of us working together on this common purpose. Together we can transform the patient experience and ensure that each patient receives exceptional patient care.

Ted James, MD, MHCM is a clinical chief, medical director and professor of surgery at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School.Dr. James also serves as a physician coach and healthcare speaker for Studer Group.

Ensuring Exceptional Patient Care (2024)

FAQs

Ensuring Exceptional Patient Care? ›

It also helps to thoroughly review the patient's chart prior to your interactions. Ask them specific follow-up questions. Finally, take the time to really listen and understand what the patient is trying to tell you. Your willingness to provide helpful guidance can create an atmosphere of exceptional patient care.

What do you do to ensure a patient has an exceptional care experience? ›

10 Key Strategies to Improve Patient Experience
  1. Minimize wait times. ...
  2. Ensure a clean environment. ...
  3. Make waiting areas comfortable. ...
  4. Minimize paperwork. ...
  5. Involve patients in their own care. ...
  6. Request verbal understanding. ...
  7. Demonstrate empathy and compassion. ...
  8. Encourage employee engagement.

How can you provide exceptional personal patient care? ›

Best practices for delivering quality patient care
  1. Show respect. ...
  2. Express gratitude. ...
  3. Enable access to care. ...
  4. Involve patients' family members and friends. ...
  5. Coordinate patient care with other providers. ...
  6. Provide emotional support. ...
  7. Engage patients in their care plan. ...
  8. Address your patients' physical needs.
Mar 6, 2020

What is the meaning of exceptional patient care? ›

It means providing care that is free from harm, minimizes redundancy and waste, allows timely access to needed services, follows best practices, and incorporates patients' preferences and treatment priorities. The following are four proven strategies for ensuring this type of exceptional care experience.

How do you ensure quality patient care? ›

How to Improve Quality of Care in Healthcare
  1. Prioritize Training and Education. The nursing staff at your facility or residence is key to improving quality. ...
  2. Increase Access to Care. ...
  3. Engage Patients and Families. ...
  4. Improve Communication. ...
  5. Measure and Monitor Quality. ...
  6. Set Tangible Goals. ...
  7. Relay Progress Back to Staff.

What is an example of exceptional patient experience? ›

‍Appointment Booking

It can be among excellent patient experience examples as the first interaction with the healthcare provider leaves a lasting impression on the patient. Research shows that patients increasingly opt for healthcare providers who offer digital communication.

What are the 4 P's of patient experience? ›

The four Ps (predictive, preventive, personalized, participative) [3] (Box 21.1) represent the cornerstones of a model of clinical medicine, which offers concrete opportunities to modify the healthcare paradigm [4].

What does improve patient outcomes mean? ›

Improving patient outcomes means thinking beyond numbers on a chart. It means considering the bigger picture of what's important to patients. Improving patients' results has implications that extend to the community — and even to a hospital's or practice's bottom line.

How can professionalism help improve patient care? ›

By being accountable, health care professionals can build trust and credibility with patients, colleagues, and the wider community. Accountability can also lead to improved patient safety, better communication and collaboration among health care providers, and a more positive work environment.

What is exceptional care in nursing? ›

Delivering consistently exceptional care means we all must focus just as intently on the experiences we provide our patients — in the waiting room, the exam room, the hallway, and the laboratory — as we do on the quality of their treatment.

What does exceptional service mean for service providers? ›

It's when you provide a positive, helpful, and timely experience for your customers. It happens when a company goes above and beyond what its customers expect. This is often done through the use of exceptional communication skills, superior knowledge of products or services, and an overall sense of sincerity.

What does delivering high quality patient care mean? ›

Providing care that is respectful of the patient's needs and preferences, and allowing those values to guide care decisions, is a cornerstone of high-quality healthcare. Safe. Healthcare providers should prioritize their patient's safety in every interaction.

What does ensuring quality care mean? ›

Quality of care is the degree to which health services for individuals and populations increase the likelihood of desired health outcomes. It is based on evidence-based professional knowledge and is critical for achieving universal health coverage.

What does high quality patient care look like? ›

According to the National Academy of Medicine, quality health care is care that is safe, effective, patient-centered, timely, efficient, and equitable.

What is an example of quality patient care? ›

Patient-centered: Providing care that is respectful of and responsive to individual patient preferences, needs and values, ensuring that patients' values guide all clinical decisions. Timely: Reducing waits and sometimes harmful delays for both those who receive and provide care.

What steps do you take to create an excellent customer experience for every patient? ›

  1. Make sure each of your employees is capable of making a good first impression. ...
  2. Keep your promises. ...
  3. Show appreciation and gratitude to your patients. ...
  4. Provide solid training. ...
  5. Listen and act when your patients complain. ...
  6. Go above and beyond what your patients expect. ...
  7. Make it easy on your patients. ...
  8. Be open with mistakes.
Apr 24, 2014

What creates a positive patient experience? ›

A patient wants to feel that their healthcare provider understands them. They want their healthcare provider to understand not only their health problem but also the emotions and feelings surrounding their sickness or ailment. The better a healthcare provider understands a patient's story, the better the experience.

How do you prioritize tasks while maintaining excellent patient care? ›

In addition to using the identified frameworks and tools to assist with priority setting, nurses must also look at their patients' data cues to help them identify care priorities. Data cues are pieces of significant clinical information that direct the nurse toward a potential clinical concern or a change in condition.

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