Engaging patients in any healthcare experience is more than just a conversation about the data. From accessibility on demand through patient portals to the coordination of care on behalf of the patient, there is an emotional experience that also defines the new patient-centered experience. While it is clear that the efficiency and effectiveness of the EHR within the patient and staff interactions within the clinic is critical, the emotional context of this connected experience among all stakeholders is also a cornerstone of engaging patients.
The distinction of experience-based design was made clear by the NHS Institute:
Using experience to design better healthcare is unique in the way that it focuses so strongly on capturing and understanding patients’, carers’ and staff experiences of services; not just their views of the process like the speed and efficiency at which they travel through the system. Instead, this approach deliberately draws out the subjective, personal feelings a patient and carer experiences at crucial points in the care pathway.
Furthermore, the institute identified three ways the design achieves this aim:
• encouraging and supporting patients and carers to “tell their stories”;
• using these stories to pinpoint those parts of the care pathway where users’ experience is most powerfully shaped (the “touchpoints”);
• working with patients, carers and frontline staff to redesign these experiences rather than just systems and processes.
Virginia Mason Medical Center reveals a common ground for the language of the patient experience in a study, “Experienced-based design for integrating the patient care experience into healthcare improvement: Identifying a set of reliable emotion words.”
The purpose of the study was to understand words that have consistent meanings for stakeholders throughout the healthcare experience. The stakeholders include: patients, families and healthcare professionals. According to one author of the study, Jennifer Phillips, “some emotional words in the English language really depend on the context and mean different things to different people.” The outcome of the study was the identification of a reliable set of emotion words for experience questionnaires in the context of experience-based design of healthcare.
The study included a threshold of at least 80-percent agreement among participants regarding perceived meanings of positive, negative, and neutral words. Interestingly, none of the “neutral” words reached the 80-percent level of agreement. For those emotional touchpoints in the care pathway, the following words did reach the defined threshold of agreement:
Positive emotion words: compassion, confident, empowered, enjoyment, enthusiastic, grateful, great, happy, hopeful, joyful, loyal, optimistic, peaceful, pleased, safe, satisfied, secure, sense of accomplishment, successful and valued.Negative emotion words: afraid, angry, disrespected, disgusted, depressed, frustrated, guilty, hatred, hopeless, ignored, insecure, jealous, resentful and sad.
It’s worth adding this important context to the meaningful use conversation of EHR. The collection and sharing of structured data is clear among healthcare professionals and those support staff within the clinic environment. But beyond these interactions and data exchange lies the opportunity to engage in the personal dialogue of the more connected and consistent patient experience. It is a shared experience among all stakeholders in the healthcare experience.
Engaging patients is an emotional experience, and as someone who continues to share a painful experience with a family as an advocate with someone we all care about suffering with Alzheimer’s disease and vascular dementia, I can certainly identify with emotional words in the Virginia Mason study.
There are so many dedicated people who facilitate and participate in the healthcare experience. As we all recognize and define our own continuous patient experience with new connections among people and information, the shared language of this experience should also be clear among all stakeholders.
Robert Green is the author of Community Healthcare: Finding a Common Ground with New Expectations in Healthcare. Through his physician client relationships, Bob has gained substantial insight regarding the daily challenges that medical professionals and their staffs face, such as regulatory issues, financial management, and clinical collaboration through the use of health IT. His process of making both interpersonal and purposeful connections within the organization results in improved employee performance and confidence and enhanced client experience.
