patient experience – Page 5 – Texas Children's News

May 1, 2018

This year’s Patient Experience Week celebration lived up to its theme, “A Magical Experience,” as patients and their families participated in fun and engaging activities at Texas Children’s Hospital Medical Center Campus, Texas Children’s Hospital West Campus and Texas Children’s Hospital The Woodlands.

Patient Experience Week was held from April 23 to 27. New this year, the Patient Experience Team launched the Compassion Challenge. Each day during Patient Experience Week, employees and staff across the organization completed a challenge that focused on the concepts of compassion, communication and connectedness. Completed Compassion Challenge forms are due Tuesday, May 1, to patientexperience@texaschildrens.org to be eligible for the prize drawing of Houston Dynamo tickets.

The week began with an inspiring speech from Houston business owner and community leader Jim McIngvale, also known as Mattress Mack. In front of a packed auditorium in the Abercrombie Building, McIngvale shared his insight about the importance of serving others and how he builds his business on these core values.

“Helping people is what I was put on this earth to do. It is what we all were made to do,” said McIngvale. “No one helps children like Texas Children’s Hospital. It is beyond amazing how you do it.”

The week also included a speech from Kelly Fuhlman from the Disney Institute who shared the magic behind the customer experience created at Disney parks and resort locations throughout the world.

Hundreds of people attended patient and family experience events across Texas Children’s three campuses. The events provided many fun children’s movie themed activities along with sweet treats and photo booths.

“These kids go through so much every day, and when we have an opportunity to make them laugh and smile, it’s exciting,” said Nazish Ahmad, West Campus Ambulatory Clinic manager. “Especially as leaders, we don’t normally have that face-to-face interaction all the time, so to be in such a fun environment and make the kiddos smile just makes the day.”

Caught You Caring (CYC) Awards ceremonies were also held at the Medical Center Campus, West Campus and The Woodlands Campus to recognize our 2018 recipients who have gone above and beyond to show compassion to our patients, families and co-workers.

The CYC program’s idea was brought to life after a physician read a heartfelt letter written by the mother of one of our patients. She described the care and compassion her whole family received during her son’s admission. Since then, CYC was conceptualized, piloted in our surgery areas in 2015, and has been launched system-wide with more than 6,000 CYC cards received. CYC boxes are located throughout all campuses so that anyone can recognize a staff member or a colleague.

A panel of judges scored each nomination to select the top employees and this year’s winners received a CYC award, a T-shirt, and the highlight of the ceremony – tickets to an upcoming Houston Texans event.

Texas Children’s Hospital Medical Center Campus:
Hilda Andrade, Lead Tech for Environmental Services
Yaneth Arrue, Unit Support Assistant in Abercrombie
Shatovia Cerf, Patient Care Assistant on 14 West Tower
Krista Miller, Staff Nurse in Labor and Delivery
Sandy Rodriguez, Front Office Specialist in Partners in OB/GYN at the Pavilion for Women
Erick Talamantes, Surgery Patient Liaison in West Tower

Texas Children’s Hospital West Campus:
Rosy Alvarado, Ambulatory Services Representative in the Urology clinic
Melissa Starner, Staff Nurse for West Campus 5th floor inpatient

Texas Children’s Hospital The Woodlands:
Lisa Carr, Staff Nurse in the Woodlands Pediatric Intensive Care Unit
Melanie Johnson, Ambulatory Services Representative in the Neurophysiology department

Overall, the Patient Experience events were a success at reminding employees, patients and families that care at Texas Children’s goes beyond the bedside. It has to do with how we treat our patients and their families from the moment they call to schedule an appointment with us to the point they leave our care.

April 17, 2018

Are you ready to take on the Compassion Challenge? To celebrate Patient Experience Week beginning on Monday, April 23, Texas Children’s will launch the Compassion Challenge to engage staff around the hospital’s core values.

Each day during Patient Experience Week, employees and staff across the organization will complete a challenge that focuses on the concepts of compassion, communication and connectedness. Whether it’s greeting 10 people within the first two hours of your shift or helping patients and visitors navigate their way through our hospital campuses and facilities, these simple acts of compassion go a long way to show just how much you care.

“We are focusing our patient experience efforts around these behavioral philosophies to exemplify the core of Texas Children’s culture,” said Texas Children’s Director of Patient and Family Services, Katie Kalenda Daggett. “Hardwiring these principles into actions throughout the organization will demonstrate to our patients and their families that we put them first, all while working to create a healthier future for children and women.”

Employees and staff who complete each challenge during Patient Experience Week will be entered into a contest for a chance to win two tickets to an upcoming Houston Dynamos game. Click here to view the details of each challenge and for more information on how to participate in the Compassion Challenge.

The theme for Patient Experience Week is “A Magical Experience,” which is fitting following last month’s exciting announcement of Texas Children’s partnership with the Walt Disney Company on patient experience initiatives. This year’s theme describes what a patient’s stay should feel like at Texas Children’s. Every day our employees and staff work together to ensure our patients and families have the best experience possible every time they see us.

From April 23 to April 27, the Patient Experience team will kick off an exciting week filled with magic-themed activities, interactive events and educational opportunities at Texas Children’s Hospital Medical Center Campus, Texas Children’s Hospital West Campus and Texas Children’s Hospital Woodlands Campus.

Several events planned include Caught You Caring Awards ceremonies at all three campuses to recognize our 2018 recipients who have gone above and beyond to show compassion to our patients, families and co-workers.

In addition, you don’t want to miss these two inspiring speaker series talks:

Local business owner and community leader Jim McIngvale, also known as Mattress Mack, will speak about the importance of serving others and how he builds his business on these core values.
Walt Disney once said “You can dream, create, design the most wonderful place in the world, but it requires people to make the dream a reality.” Kelly Fuhlman from the Disney Institute shares the magic behind the customer experience created at Disney parks and resort locations throughout the world.

If you can’t attend the speaker series at the Medical Center Campus, video streaming will be available to other locations. Come out and celebrate the hard work that each of us does every day to make the patient experience an exceptional one at Texas Children’s.

There will be fun activities for patients and families as well including music, a photo booth, a magician, Disney characters, games and activities.

Click here to view the speaker series flyer.

PATIENT EXPERIENCE WEEK 2018 – A MAGICAL EXPERIENCE

Monday, April 23

Speaker Series: The Magic of Serving Others
Join us during Patient Experience Week as we learn about the importance of serving others from community leader and supporter Mattress Mack.

Where: Texas Children’s auditorium (Abercrombie Building – Medical Center Campus)
When: noon to 1 p.m.

Caught you Caring Awards Reception
Join us during Patient Experience Week as we celebrate employees and staff who have gone above and beyond to provide compassion to our patients, families and co-workers.

Where: Pavilion for Women Conference Rooms B and C (fourth floor)
When: 3 p.m. to 4 p.m.

Tuesday, April 24

Where: West Campus Conference Room (WH-01A)
When: 10 a.m. to 10:30 a.m.

Patient and Family Celebration
Patients and families are invited to join us for “A Magical Experience” at one of our patient and family celebrations during Patient Experience Week. There will be music, a photo booth, Disney characters, games and activities.

Where: West Campus (first-floor lobby)
When: 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.

Wednesday, April 25

Speaker Series: The Magic behind the Customer Experience
Walt Disney once said, “You can dream, create, design the most wonderful place in the world, but it requires people to make the dream a reality.” Kelly Fuhlman from the Disney Institute shares the business behind the magic created at Disney parks and resort locations throughout the world.

Where: Texas Children’s auditorium (Abercrombie Building, Medical Center Campus)
When: 10 a.m. to 11 a.m.

Thursday, April 26

Where: The Auxiliary Bridge (Medical Center Campus)
When: 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.

Friday, April 27

Where: The Woodlands Conference Center (WL.0280.02)
When: 10 a.m. to 10:30 a.m.

Where: The Woodlands Hospital (first-floor lobby)
When: 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.

Other activities throughout the week at the Pavilion for Women include:

Chair massages will be available for patients at the Pavilion for Women clinics. The massage therapist will rotate through the clinics throughout the week. Tea cart will also provide tea, cookies and a succulent to inpatients at Pavilion for Women.

October 31, 2017

Halloween came early for several patients, families and employees across Texas Children’s and will continue throughout the week with various spooktacular events filled with fun.

At West Campus, the festivities began on October 26 with the campus’ annual Fall Festival. Dressed in their Halloween best, employees handed out goodies and played games with patients during the multi-hour long party sponsored by Child Life. A similar festival is being held on Halloween at Texas Children’s Hospital The Woodlands.

The festivities continued at West Campus and in The Woodlands when members of Texas Window Cleaning Co., Inc. dressed up as super heroes and cleaned both of the hospital’s windows while waving to children inside. The company has been cleaning the windows at West Campus since 2011. This was their first year in The Woodlands.

Ghosts, goblins and ghouls also were out in full force on The Auxiliary Bridge for the annual Halloween on the Bridge event at Texas Children’s Hospital Main Campus, at the Spirit of Halloween and a new Kids Haunted House held in the Child Life Zone, and other areas across the organization.

View the photo gallery below to get a glimpse of the fun everyone had at these unforgettable events.

September 26, 2017

At Texas Children’s, we know just how important it is to keep the patient and family’s experience at the forefront of everything we do. Enhancing the experience for every patient and family who walks through our doors to receive care remains our top priority.

“We collect feedback year-round from our patient families to better understand how they experience their care with us, as well as to compare Texas Children’s experience with that of similar women’s and children’s hospitals across the country,” said Texas Children’s Director of Patient and Family Services Katie Kalenda Daggett. “The improvement initiatives and activities implemented across the Texas Children’s system are directly tied to what they tell us through the surveys.”

Starting on October 1, 2017, Texas Children’s will implement several new changes to the Patient Satisfaction Survey in response to feedback from patients, families, staff and providers. These enhancements will make the survey process more convenient for patient families and will provide specific actionable insight on what we do well and on where we have opportunities.

There are several survey improvements that will be implemented in FY18:

All phone surveys will transition to e-surveys. E-surveys will give families the opportunity to provide feedback almost immediately or when it is most convenient for them. This will make data more timely for teams. Patient families will also have the opportunity to provide feedback via their mobile devices. The e-survey will be available in two languages – English and Spanish – which will allow staff to receive feedback from the majority of Texas Children’s patient population. Through e-surveys, employees and staff will have the opportunity to survey 100 percent of the eligible patient population.
Survey questions will be condensed with the exception of inpatient surveys. Instead of 20 to 60 questions, the e-surveys will consist of 15-20 questions. Survey questions are selected based on their correlation to the patient’s overall satisfaction, the ability to take action, unit-level importance and Magnet reporting. By only asking questions that matter most to patients and their families, the goal is to achieve a better use of patients’ time when completing the survey.
Transition to CAHPS survey: Pediatric and adult inpatients will receive a Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (CAHPS) survey upon discharge. The Leapfrog Survey and other regulatory bodies use HCAHPS to measure patient satisfaction. This adjustment will allow Texas Children’s to benchmark the experience of care with others across the nation.
Transition to NICU survey: Parents of patients in our Newborn Center will receive a NICU specific e-survey which provide meaningful questions pertaining to the hospital’s NICU population. This survey will allow our NICU to benchmark patient experience scores with other NICU’s across the nation.

In addition to these improvements to patient satisfaction surveying, Texas Children’s will transition to top box for goal setting and data reporting. Considered the industry standard for measuring patient satisfaction, top box is the percentage of respondents who gave the most positive response on the survey scale, such as “very good,” “yes,” or “always” – depending on survey type.

“Patient satisfaction goals will transition from a mean score to top box percentile which is simpler and more concise than a mean score,” said Aileen Rago, assistant director of Patient and Family Services. “Data, reports and unit goals will look different, as top box will be used in place of the mean score. A top box score of 67 percent means that 67 percent of patients/parents responded “very good” to the survey question. Essentially, top box will showcase how consistently we deliver on the experience at Texas Children’s.”

While these changes will take time to get used to, these improvements will provide employees and staff with more timely, meaningful data and benchmarking to ensure we create the best experience for our patients and their families.

“Patient and family experience at Texas Children’s is inclusive of the medical care we provide at the bedside,” Kalenda-Daggett said. “It is a reflection of our partnership with the patient and family. Everything we do revolves around our patients and families being heard and responded to. With these changes, we will be able to survey more of our patients in ways that works best for them; in turn we will better understand the needs of our patients and families, and respond compassionately.”

August 15, 2017

“When we were at Texas Children’s for countless tests and procedures, wrestling for an elevator was the last thing we wanted to do,” wrote a Texas Children’s patient family. “Thank you to all of the staff and doctors who we saw taking the stairs. Seeing staff walk up or down a few flights of stairs was a kind gesture to free up space.”

This recent Caught You Caring comment is one of many inspiring messages submitted to Texas Children’s Patient Experience Team following the launch of the hospital’s Step Up for Patients First initiative two months ago.

“Since this initiative began, we have received an influx of positive comments from patient families,” said Maggie Weimer, senior project manager of Patient and Family Services. “Comparing third quarter metrics in FY16 and FY17, we have seen a 70 percent drop in negative comments related to elevator use at the Mark Wallace Tower.”

In June, Texas Children’s launched the Step Up for Patients First initiative, which encourages employees and staff to put patients and families first, from the time they arrive at work to the time they leave. This includes providing patients and their families priority access to the elevators to reduce unnecessary wait times.

“Long wait times had been a significant, ongoing concern for patient families who depend on the Wallace Tower elevators to take them to and from their clinic appointments,” said Katie Kalenda Daggett, director of Patient and Family Services. “Because of the positive feedback from patient families, we learned this simple act of putting patients first when moving about on our public elevators has made a strong and positive statement about our commitment to them.”

Furthermore, to support the Step up for Patients First initiative, 2,083 Texas Children’s employees participated in the StairWELL challenge during the month of June, while making physical activity a priority in 2017. Prior to the stairwell initiative, patient families waited up to 30 minutes for an elevator at Wallace Tower. With more employees taking the stairs, wait times have improved significantly, allowing patients and their families to arrive at their appointments with ease.

“As appointment volumes tend to pick up going into the school year, we want to encourage employees to be aware and step in to help our patient families who may need our guidance,” Weimer said. “We all represent Texas Children’s and our patients and families are counting on us to help them throughout their visit.”

Step Up for Patients First is part of a broader initiative that will include future improvement efforts, such as encouraging employees to assist those who are lost and need help with wayfinding and optimizing employee visibility of the Caught You Caring Program, an organization-wide initiative that recognizes employees for their every day acts of kindness and their above and beyond efforts to show they care for Texas Children’s patients.

The Patient Experience Team continually receives feedback from patient families – including employees and staff – about small changes that can be implemented system-wide to promote a positive patient experience.

If you have suggestions for improvements or any additional feedback, contact the Patient Experience Team at patientexperience@texaschildrens.org

May 3, 2017

From NASA astronauts to Star Wars characters to the rings of Saturn, Texas Children’s employees and patients experienced a trip to outer space during Patient Experience Week that kicked off on April 24.

This year’s theme, Texas Children’s Patient Experience is Out of this World, describes what our 12,000+ employees and staff do every day to ensure our patient families have the best experience possible.

“We thought the space theme for Patient Experience Week was appropriate because our employees and staff are constantly shooting for the stars to create a positive experience for our patients and their families,” said Patient and Family Services Senior Project Manager Maggie Weimer.

Hundreds of people attended patient and family experience events at Main Campus and Texas Children’s Hospital West Campus. The events offered up a lot of information and a lot of fun.

Here are some of the highlights:

Employee Health and Employee Assistance Program delivered two lectures on how to stay energized and how to bring love and kindness to your lives.
NASA astronaut Dr. Kjell Lindren talked about the commonalities between NASA’s preparation for space flight and how hospitals prepare for patient care.
Southwest Airlines Ambassador of FUN Tony Brigmon shared how staying positive, having fun, preventing conflict and working better together can create positive results for an organization. He provided a link to a journal to integrate his tips into our daily routines.
Space-themed activities for the patients included creating a space galaxy, moon rock throws, Saturn ring tosses, decorating a spaceship, and getting photos taken with their favorite Star Wars characters.

A Caught You Caring Awards ceremony was held to recognize our 2017 recipients:

Grace Collins, PCA, West Campus
Joyce Enochs, surgery scheduling optimizer, Medical Center
Heather Eppelheimer, child life specialist, Pavilion for Women
Roderic Johnson, radiology technician, Kingwood Specialty Care
Amanda Riddle, staff nurse, Medical Center
Sandy Rodriguez, front office specialist, Pavilion for Women
Keith Thomas, ASR, Meyer Center for Developmental Pediatrics
Kevin Young, patient transporter, Medical Center

May 3, 2016

From an Olympic-themed spring carnival on The Auxiliary Bridge to an intimate talk with our physicians and one of our patient families, this year’s patient experience week activities were both fun and insightful. Here are some of the highlights:

Patient Experience Survey teams hosted a spring carnival on The Auxiliary Bridge for our patients and their families. The Olympic-themed event had everything from golf to balance beam walking and water gun shooting. See photos below. Throughout the week, employees and staff took the games to the rooms of patients who couldn’t make it to the bridge.
Several employees and staff attended two talks about how communication is the first step to a great patient experience. The event included comments from various Texas Children’s physicians as well as one of the hospital’s patient families.
Throughout the week, staff and employees were asked to participate in a poster and essay contest. The recipients, along with the 2016 Caught You Caring recipients of the year, were announced at a closing ceremony that capped the week’s events.

2016 Caught You Caring recipients of the year: