Day 2: July 21, 2022

Health equity significantly impacts the patient experience, a fact that more and more institutions are recognizing and acknowledging in recent years. To better serve patients, organizations must bring health equity into focus as they design and evaluate patient experience to understand barriers and inequality in systems and to makes sure all patients can access the highest standard of care. Take some time to hear insights on the journey to improving health equity in patient experience through:

• Understanding how to bring customer expectations and customer experience into alignment
• Looking at your own patient experience practices through the lens of equity and inclusion
• Identifying barriers to care and making strategic changes to address them
• Finding where and how to improve communication with underserved patients so that the full patient experience is accurately represented and improvements can be made for those populations
• Committing to an ongoing effort to build trust with minority and underserved populations to increase retention and continually improve practice

Airica Steed

Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer
Sinai Health System

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Kellie Medious

DEI Officer and Senior Director of Patient Access Operations
Erie Family Health Centers

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Matilde Roman

SVP, Chief Equity, Inclusion and Diversity Officer
Westchester Medical Center

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General hospital PFACs are consistent across Massachusetts and much of the US, but some departments present specific engagement challenges and offer unique opportunities to respond to patients’ needs. This session with Jonathan D. Sonis, MD, Chair of Quality and Safety, Department of Emergency Medicine, explores best practices in the ED that can be used as a basis for engaging your PFACs in new, more nuanced ways. For example:

• Addressing inequalities in the survey gathering process to make sure your patients are represented accurately
• Addressing barriers to participation so that many patient voices are heard
• Designing patient outreach that goes beyond “typical” PFAC membership
• Working with PFACs to help manage patient expectations and create new channels of engagement in and beyond the ED
• (Let me know if the above is accurate or if you want to add any other takeaways)

Jonathan D. Sonis, MD,

Chair of Quality and Safety
Emergency Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital

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Getting patient feedback is vital to improving performance, but how that data is received and what is done with it make all the

difference in real-time interactions with patients. In this session, we explore innovative ways to close this feedback loop by turning

real-time impact into easy-to-see dashboards, alert sand more that enable teams to address concerns faster as well as offering

broad analysis of opportunities for improvement. Hear success stories on:

• Engaging with feedback from patients and employees in real time to make swift change and increase patient retention
• Identifying gaps and friction points throughout the patient journey
• Accessing patient experience analytics in formats and dashboards that provide new insights
• Understanding where you need to allocate resources to solve pain points

Merri Lazenby

Director, Human Resources
Northwestern Medicine

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We have relied on staff resilience more than ever in the last few years, but it takes time and work to replenish empathy and combat fatigue. Learn about key takeaways from leaders in the field based on a series of interventions across groups of healthcare professionals from clinical leaders, frontline staff, physicians and more on the importance of replenishment and strategies for:

• Building organizational understanding the impact of burnout and emotional exhaustion on our ability to have empathy
• Promoting self-awareness and self-empowerment as an ongoing healthcare practice
• Helping staff evaluate and make choices to promote wellbeing
• Leveraging gratitude to break down barriers and resentment
• Using interventional conversations as a practice for creating staff care and organizational trust

Pamela Bell

Patient Experience Officer
Valley Health System

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Elizabeth Kennett

Project Manager II, Leadership Coach
The Center for Congregational Health, Atrium Health-Wake Forest Baptist

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Communication is central to patient experience, from internal communication to patient healthcare literacy. In this session, we explore different facets of communication as a medical group as it relates to different stakeholders, alongside working with staff and physicians to hone their communication skills and enabling patients to find the resources they need. Hear from experts at Hill Physicians Medical Group about best practices for:

• Communicating with physicians to create a strong network of partners
• Collaborating and motivating stakeholders on performance improvement
• Working with care teams and patients to create resources that foster accountability 

Emma Fulton

Manager, Patient and Provider Experience
Hill Physicians Medical Group

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Wendy Manna

Patient and Provider Experience Specialist
Hill Physicians Medical Group

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What does it look like to create a strategic approach that engages patients, healthcare staff and communities from the beginning? In this session, get an inside look at designing patient experience in a new setting and leave with takeaways from the process that can apply wherever you are in your patient experience journey, such as:

• Getting team input and employee buy-in as you plan and execute your PX strategy
• Engaging patients, their loved ones and staff to get a better understanding of how we can meet the needs of those we serve
• Finding ways to bring joy and hope into your patient experience

Kelly Vorseth

Senior Patient Experience Director
Sheikh Shakhbout Medical City (SSMC, Abu Dhabi)

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