Almost 250 years ago, the march of British soldiers, known as Red Coats, toward Lexington and Concord led to the first battle of the American Revolution. More recently, the success of another group of Red Coats, the Penn Medicine Ambassadors, helped fuel the idea that activities at one UPHS entity could be duplicated across the health system. The Red Coats now greet and assist patients and guests at each Penn Medicine facility.
Ideas and programs that improve the patient experience are the focus of the Patient Experience Leadership Team (PELT), a multi-disciplinary team of more than 40 operations, nursing and provider representatives as well as three patient representatives from the Patient and Family Advisory Councils. PELT traces its beginning to informal meetings in 2015 attended by patient experience leaders at their entities.
“We talked about who we are and what do we want to be,” explained Craig Loundas, Associate Vice President, Penn Medicine Experience. “We knew there were a lot of good ideas to leverage from all of the entities.”
The group spent the first year gaining an understanding of what was happening at the entities and looking at best practices that could be scaled for the entire health system. The Red Coats are a prime example of an initiative that started at the Perelman Center for Advanced Medicine, was well-received and identified as worthwhile for the entire health system.
The PELT was instrumental in the creation of the Penn Medicine Definition and Experience Standards, which were recently launched system wide. A reflection of who we are at Penn Medicine, the standards remind us to “BE Compassionate, BE Present, BE Empowered, BE Collaborative and BE Accountable.” A campaign is underway that introduces one standard per month leading up to even more “BE” activity during Penn Medicine Experience Week in October.
When it comes to creating standards that improve the patient experience feedback from multiple stakeholders, including patients and guests is critical. Today, managers receive patient and guest comments from a variety of sources. The comments are not summarized by unit or department on one system and can be difficult to synthesize. A goal for the PELT in 2019 is to harness technology and find a system that provides a summary of comments from sources including Press Ganey responses, patient and guest relations comments, social media and real-time manager rounding. This synthesized feedback from multiple stakeholders will create a new level of efficiency and provide invaluable insight.
“We are continually focused on finding systemic ways to improve the patient experience,” said Loundas. “And PELT has been integral in this effort.”
For more information about the Patient Experience Leadership Team (PELT) or the Penn Medicine Experience, contact craig.loundas@uphs.upenn.edu.