Saint Mary’s kicks off a Patient Experience and Colleague Engagement Initiative

In late December, Saint Mary's leaders gathered for a retreat to launch a new patient experience and colleague engagement initiative.

Based on the concept that all colleagues touch patients in some way, Saint Mary’s Patient Experience team, supported by Nursing and Mission, have begun a new initiative to elevate patient experience and colleague engagement.

The Cultivating a Culture of Wellbeing for Colleagues and Patients initiative began with a retreat in late December for Saint Mary’s leaders, presented by Shawna Edwards, MSN, RN, Chief Nursing Officer and Vice President of Patient Care Services, Stephanie Boccuzzi, M.Div., Mission Leader, and Dahivsa Mercado, Regional Program Director Patient Centered Care.

The goals for the retreat included deepening an understanding of patient experience and introduction of ICARE (Trinity Health’s Service Standards), learning new skills to strengthen leadership in clinical and non-clinical settings, and providing opportunities to collaborate, share best practices and ask questions. The retreat was also an opportunity to kick off Blended Rounding.

Blended Rounding, the once a week rounding model, pairs leaders of both clinical and non-clinical departments. The pair are assigned to round on a specific unit for a determined amount of time. Their task is to connect with patients and colleagues. The hope is that real-time patient feedback garnered during the rounds will create a positive impact on patient experience, improve colleague engagement and increase ownership and accountability. The data collected during the rounding is submitted into a survey which is then analyzed for trends and communicated to leaders, ultimately leading to improved processes and best practices.

“Colleagues and patients are our priority, fundamentally, mission-wise, this is what we should be doing,” said Shawna Edwards, MSN, RN. “I am most excited about highlighting the wonderful things we already do.”

Blended Rounding was piloted in January and is now fully underway. In these early stages, the hope is to get colleagues comfortable with the new process, review collected data and to develop patient experience tips.