“Hospital administrators are recognizing that providing good healthcare has to come in conjunction with good service. As long as there’s a competitive environment and everybody has the best doctors, the next-best thing you can do is provide a phenomenal patient and family experience.” – Larry Lynch, Disney Institute
Background
As accountability and public reporting of patient satisfaction increases, hospitals need to translate data into performance improvement results. Patients value their individual needs and evaluate the quality of their health care experience based on how well those needs are met. Their perception of their experience is their reality. High levels of patient satisfaction carry positive financial consequences through increased patient loyalty and likelihood to recommend the hospital to their family and friends. Excellence in patient satisfaction requires meeting patients’ individual needs and positively impacting their perception of their hospital experience, and therefore, the quality of care they received.
Program Overview
In order to address service excellence at NYU Hospitals Center, the Patient Satisfaction Committee is piloting the Ready Resolve Program that NYU Hospital for Joint Diseases uses in NYUHC’s Tisch Hospital.
The Ready Resolve Program will consist of teams of 8 employees assigned to a particular nursing unit. These “Ready Resolvers” will volunteer one hour per day for one week every other month visiting the patients in their assigned nursing unit and asking them a series of 9 pre-scripted questions. The expectation is that the Ready Resolvers will be able to acknowledge the patient’s issue/concern immediately and resolve it in a timely manner.
The response to the questions will be documented and tracked for trending and performance improvement purposes. The patient satisfaction results scores for Ready Resolve nursing units will also be tracked to determine if the program has an impact on scores.
Training
Ready Resolvers will be required to participate in a Ready Resolve in-service conducted by Organizational Development & Learning. This training will include:
- the principles of service excellence
- the power of communication
- the service dimensions in which patient’s evaluate satisfaction
1. Eight Ready Resolvers will be assigned to one nursing unit. One of these Ready Resolvers will serve as the Team Captain, who will be responsible for arranging the weekly schedules and collecting the Ready Resolve cards. Each Ready Resolver will visit the patients on their assigned nursing unit each day, for one week out of every two months. The visits should take about one hour per day.
2. The Ready Resolver will visit all patients on their assigned unit, except for those removed from the list by the Nurse Manager.
3. The Ready Resolver will go to their assigned nursing unit and check-in with the Nurse Manager or designee. The NM will provide the Ready Resolver with a list of the patients on the unit and determine which patients should not be visited. All Ready Resolvers must wear their Ready Resolve ID badge and NYUMC ID for safety and identification purposes.
4. When visiting patients, the Ready Resolver will knock on the patient’s door and announce their presence. Once inside the room, the Ready Resolver will introduce themselves and explain to the patient why they are visiting them, reading from script on Ready Resolve card. The Ready Resolver will then ask the questions on the card while filling in all blanks on the card.
5. If there are any needs that can be taken care of immediately (i.e. getting a blanket, pillow, etc.) the Ready Resolver should do this immediately after interviewing the patient. Issues that require calling departments can be handled after each patient visit or after all the patients in the unit have been visited. Departments and phone numbers are listed on the back of the Ready Resolve cards. Check the department(s) to which Ready Resolve requests were sent, and indicate if additional follow-up is required. If yes, indicate the action required.
6. When the Ready Resolver calls the respective department, for a follow-up issue, please make sure the person answering the phone knows that this is a Ready Resolve issue. This ensures that the issue will be acknowledged within the guidelines that those departments have committed to. For departments responding to issue: In-person acknowledgement should be immediate and take no longer than 2 hours. If a timely resolution is not feasible in-person, an acknowledgement by phone is acceptable as long as the concern is resolved ASAP.
7. Once all questions have been asked to the patient, the Ready Resolver will thank the patient for their time and let them know that their feedback is very important in continuously improving our patients’ experience at NYU Hospitals Center.
8. After visiting all the patients on the unit and calling the respective departments for follow-up, the Ready Resolver is finished with their duties for the day.
9. If a patient had a prior issue for follow-up, the Ready Resolver is responsible for ensuring that the issue has been resolved when visiting the patient the following day. If the patient’s issue is not resolved, the Ready Resolver will document this on the card and either call or e-mail Hospital Administration (Max Julian – 212.263.3787 or Maximilian.julian@nyumc.org).
10. At the end of the week, the Ready Resolver will turn in their completed Ready Resolve cards to their Team Captain who will then forward them to Max Julian in Hospital Administration, TH-181.
Note: In order to comply with hand hygiene guidelines in health care settings and to prevent infections, all Ready Resolvers will wash their hands or use a hand sanitizer before and after visiting each patient.
Questions:
Name |
Phone |
|
Peg Broadhurst |
212-263-6708 |
|
Lori Burkhoff |
212-404-3466 |
|
Amy Horrocks |
212-263-5765 |