It drives me insane that people think that there is some magical answer on improving our patient outcomes. Doing the right thing will create better patient outcomes, then increase your patients satisfaction scores, then your HCAHPS, then increase the amount of new and returning customers you have. Oh my gosh I think I just solved how to make patients healthy and make money! I better sell that one. Is it really that simple? Absolutely it is, but EVERYONE needs to do the right thing. It starts with senior leadership and then you work your way down. Some of you may say, "well if my staffing were better I could make that happen." You are right, and my response to you is, "refer to what I highlighted above." It only takes one mistake in a process to ruin everything. Why is it hard to get everyone to do the right thing? Well that would be because you have to define what the "right thing" is. There are many people involved in patient care, but for some reason we tend to focus on our area. As healthcare workers we tend to be closed minded. We only see what is happening in our little area. Tell me with a straight face that the majority of critical care nurses know what it is like on the med/surg floor and vice versa. If you can do that I will give you a candy bar.
Pharmacy doesn't know nursing processes, nursing doesn't know environmental services processes, and dietary doesn't know labs processes, and nurses and physicians don't have a clue what each other are doing. Do they need to know these processes? Is it really that important? The answers to both of those questions are YES. They need to have a high level understanding of each other processes, because if they do not know each others processes it is hard to truly do the right thing.
When I do something for a patient I look at everyone's process, then I ask myself what is the best for the patient. If I can say without a doubt that I am doing the right thing for the patient then I am going with that approach. I didn't go to nursing school for nothing, and if I did then you might as well just hire some random person off of the street. I went into nursing school to help patients, but does everyone that works at a hospital feel the same way that I do? Probably not, and shame on us as a healthcare system for letting that happen. I believe that the majority of people want to help others. No one wants to wake up everyday thinking that their job doesn't have a purpose. I want to tell you right now that if you work in healthcare you have a purpose. When we all realize that and we understand each others place in the healthcare system we can fix our patient outcomes. So it is as easy as doing the right thing, but as stated above it has to involve Everyone. Understand your employees, make sure your employees understand their importance, then all of your employees need a high level understanding of each others purpose, then you can consistently increase patient outcomes.
My team an I have been working on a patient engagement project to improve patient outcomes and HCAHPS. We are going to empower and engage the patient. I will be at the HIMSS 2014 conference next week, and I would love to meet with anyone who has an innovative idea. I would love to share with you what we are working on, because what we are working on is the right thing. One part of the innovation center is to share ideas, and make things better for patients. That is exactly what my goal is.
Aaron Litherland
@AaronLitherland
The Health Innovation Zone on G+
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