In our next ‘provider snapshot’, Jenny Blank, executive director of patient services at Winter Haven Hospital, shares the story of how her ED team achieved national recognition for their initiative to transform patient satisfaction and revitalize the department using technology.

The inevitable shift towards a pay-for-performance health care system has intensified the impact of patient satisfaction on hospital success, motivating hospitals and health systems to seek patient-centered solutions that promote quality of care. Access to patient data and efficient flow of information between clinicians, patients, and patient families are key to meeting both of these goals.

At Winter Haven, the ED team embarked on a mission to address the challenge of patient satisfaction by developing a plan of action that would support increased transparency and communication between clinicians and patients, faster treatment times and an improved community perception of the ED. By better facilitating access to patient information the ED positioned itself to provide accessible, compassionate, comprehensive, high quality health care. Their results tell all — the Winter Haven ED team moved the needle on patient satisfaction and achieved our hospital’s goal. Our patients couldn’t be happier!

The Goal

  • Make significant gains in national patient satisfaction scores across the facility.

The Strategy

  • Implemented a complete ED electronic medical record that enabled caregivers to access patient information at any place or time in the care process and to treat those patients seamlessly as they flowed through different care areas.
  • Leveraged clinical documentation and advanced decision support to provide clinicians accurate information at the point of care.
  • Improved charge capture and reporting, identifying unnecessary spending across the supply chain, bottlenecks in patient flow and performance improvements.

The Results

  • Improved ED patient satisfaction scores from below the national 25th percentile to above the 75th percentile in less than three years.
  • Saw charge capture rates as high 99%, leading to an increase in annualized revenue of almost $300,000.
  • Received American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC) Magnet status in October 2008.
  • Was awarded best poster in the category of Structural Empowerment for the poster “Nurses Working with Board Members to Improve Emergency Department Patient Satisfaction” at National Magnet Conference 2010.
  • Received Picis Customer Recognition Award in 2011 for leveraging IT to improve patient satisfaction.