Today marks the end of Patient Experience Week – a week dedicated to healthcare professionals and organizations across the country who have positively impacted the patient experience. Founded by the Beryl Institute, this week celebrates accomplishments, re-energizes efforts, and brings together the community in awareness of the importance of improving patient experience.
Vynca has many reasons to celebrate the achievements of our clients! Each and every organization we partner with is making a big difference in the experience of their patients, members, and providers. Just look at how Spectrum Health quickly responded to COVID-19 or how the Louisiana Health Care Quality Forum, together with Ochsner, have prioritized patients’ end-of-life wishes.
In honor of Patient Experience Week, we would like to share how advance care planning can improve the patient experience and how you can support these efforts.
Empower Patients in Shared Decision Making
Advance care planning is not an easy process. The conversations are inherently emotional and require everyone involved to be brave. Providers must guide conversations in a way that is knowledgeable and compassionate, ultimately helping people open their hearts to difficult decisions. When patients have access to educational content and are provided easy ways to share care preferences with loved ones, their experience improves. (Anna Gosline, Executive Director of the Massachusetts Coalition for Serious Illness Care, recently published an insightful article on how individuals perceive advance care planning and how we can be mindful. Check it out!)
Support the Care Team
Providers, who are engaging in advance care planning conversations and completing the documents, need organizational support to do so in an efficient and accurate way. Are conversations structured and standardized? Resources, like this Serious Illness Conversation Guide by Ariadne Labs, are available the help guide goals of care discussions. With educational tools and a standardized approach, higher-quality conversations will be the result.
Ensure Goal-Concordant Care
When end-of-life care preferences are appropriately captured and are accessible, providers can ensure goal concordant care is provided when it matters most. Is your organization equipped to digitally complete and share care plans, regardless of care setting? To truly improve the patient experience, documented wishes must be easily accessible when it matters most.
We hope you had a chance to celebrate your successes and evaluate your efforts regarding patient experience this week! When advance care planning is done in a structured and empowering way, you can improve a patient’s experience by instilling confidence that their wishes are known and will be honored.