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In an effort to advance care improvement opportunities in the outpatient setting, BWH has been administering surveys in various ambulatory practices for the last five years.
While many hospital staff and employees may be familiar with the inpatient survey program, administered by Press Ganey Associates, in the outpatient setting a similar process is coordinated in-house, under the leadership of the Center for Clinical Excellence and its Performance Measurement and Analysis Group (PMAG).
“BWH is committed to better understanding our patients’ needs and giving them an active voice,” said Michael Gustafson, MD, MBA, executive director, Center for Clinical Excellence. “Our Ambulatory Patient Satisfaction Program provides the tools and analysis necessary to use patient feedback to implement improvement projects.”
Last year alone, the Center collected more than 7,000 surveys across all ambulatory settings, including the Emergency Department and the Pre-Admitting Test Center. Since 1997, various practices and specialty areas have worked with PMAG to help design a survey that fits their needs. Practices work collaboratively with PMAG staff members to decide where, when, and how often surveys are administered, and what aspects of service performance they want to target for feedback.
“Our goal is to be as flexible as possible to meet the needs of the diverse ambulatory practices,” said Troy Tomilonus, senior project manager, PMAG. “Improving patient satisfaction is a top priority for us. We are dedicated to not only facilitating the survey process, but helping practices determine whether targeted interventions are having desired effects.”
The Department of Medicine Specialty Practices has been measuring quality and assessing the impact of improvement efforts since the Ambulatory Patient Satisfaction Program was first launched. Based on survey results, the Medicine Practices have initiated a variety of responses that all aim to increase patient satisfaction, monitor quality and identify areas for improvement. They have set telephone service standards, eased the registration process with one-stop, pre-registration and improved the billing process via use of new technology. All of these initiatives are aimed at making the patient’s experience more positive.
In addition to these efforts, the department also requires all staff to complete customer service training annually and this year will provide enhanced managerial training on hiring and retention.
To learn more about the Ambulatory Patient Satisfaction Program, contact Sophia Lazarides at ext. 2-7075 or Tomilonus at ext. 2-8956.