The healthcare space has been the scene of rising tensions that were only exacerbated by the stresses of the pandemic. In investigating this “epidemic of rudeness”, Jason Dupuis, Chief Experience Officer at PM Pediatrics set out to explore the origins of this tension and find ways to reframe the narrative to bring staff and patient experience into one strategy. In this session, Jason talks about beginning the human experience journey and steps along the way such as:

• Understanding the current healthcare landscape from patient and staff perspectives
• Bringing staff into decision making around patient interactions
• Setting up opportunities and preparing for patient conversations to emphasize listening and de-escalation
• Reexamining core values to make sure they capture the human experience

Delivering great service is at the core of patient experience – but measuring, evaluating and changing your patient experience scores can be a frustrating guessing game without supporting data. Hear from Ashley Ackerman, Director of Patient Experience at Baptist Health System KY/IN, about how Baptist Health Medical Group created an internal metric to track the adoption of soft skill training and its overall impact on the patient experience.

Through this fireside chat, we will explore:

• The addition of key survey questions to pinpoint patients’ perceptions of courtesy, empathy and respect
• Understanding the correlation between soft skills and overall patient experience, as well as how to use these metrics as early predictors and gauges
• Targeting behaviors in service training that move the dial on these soft skills and make lasting impacts on patient experience

When it comes to creating great patient experiences, it is vital to engage patient communities, PFACs and more to create a sense of community and ensure there are avenues for meaningful change. In this session, we will hear different perspectives from the healthcare community with the goal of making a lasting impact through best practices such as:

• Engaging your patients as partners in designing patient experiences
• Designating PFAC's role in organizations and ensuring they are able to communicate findings and suggestions
• Continual outreach around new initiatives and policies that effect patient experience 
• Opening lines of communication to build empathy and understanding between staff and patient advocates

Accurate and transparent data is central to helping patients make care decisions and helping hospitals develop strategies to improve patient satisfaction. In this session, learn about the process of creating a transparent, clear and cohesive ratings system with Kathy Denton, a leader in Patient Experience at MD Anderson Cancer Center, including challenges and lessons learned. Find out more about best practices for:

• Creating a set of questions that capture the patient experience and translating that to a rubric
• Rolling out a new system to staff, with strategies to address physician concerns
• Setting up comment criteria and making certain that comments are relevant to the physician
• Using star ratings to improve patient satisfaction and engagement

The recent health crisis has increased stress and decreased tolerance and empathy across the nation. In this climate, how do health care institutions maintain a patient-centered culture as the core priority? It starts with recognizing patients’ vulnerability, finding ways to prevent escalation and strategies for creating a respectful and caring environment for both staff and patients. Hear from Dr. Peggy Greco, Chief Patient Experience Officer at Nemours Children’s Health, on strategies for:

• Understanding how patient and healthcare culture has been shaped in recent years
• Increasing awareness and acknowledgement of staff and patient stress and modifying our approach to maintaining a patient-centered culture
• Evaluating your health care environment and implementing changes to influence patient and staff behaviors
• Teaching cultural awareness and sensitivity to understand how vulnerable patients experience healthcare
• Helping associates and patients alike feel safe and supported in the health care environment 

With the great resignation, staff burnout, and many personal challenges, it can be harder than ever to keep staff feeling valued and supported. Add to that an influx of hiring and new employees – how do you make sure you are listening and giving staff the support and tools needed to deliver excellent patient experience? Through this session, we look at strategies for listening to, investing in, and empowering your teams. Hear about strategies for:

• Building opportunities for listening and learning from your team members through task forces, formal and informal feedback gathering and more.
• Making small investments that can lead to big impacts in team wellness and satisfaction
• Exploring opportunities to empower staff to continue personal and professional growth
• Taking the opportunity to review lessons learned and bring your findings back to your teams to continue employee dialogue

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

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)

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

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

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 

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