Relias Media - Continuing Medical Education Publishing

The trusted source for

healthcare information and

CONTINUING EDUCATION.

  • Sign In
  • Sign Out
  • MyAHC
    • Home
      • Home
      • Newsletters
      • Blogs
      • Archives
      • CME/CE Map
      • Shop
    • Emergency
      • All Products
      • Publications
      • Study Guides
      • Webinars
      • Group Sales
    • Hospital
      • All Products
      • Publications
      • Study Guides
      • Webinars
      • Group Sales
    • Clinical
      • All Products
      • Publications
      • Study Guides
      • Webinars
      • Group Sales
    • All Access
      • Subscribe Now
      • My Subscription
    • My Account
      • My Subscriptions
      • My Content
      • My Orders
      • My CME/CE
      • My Transcript
    Home » ‘Exceptional Every Day’ Program Improves Quality and Safety

    ‘Exceptional Every Day’ Program Improves Quality and Safety

    July 1, 2018
    No Comments
    Reprints
    Facebook Twitter Linkedin Share Share

    Related Articles

    Focus on patient safety all day, every day

    Exceptional CHF program is built on best practices, benchmarks

    SDS Accreditation Update: Document every step of tissue transport, handling

    Related Products

    Focus on patient safety all day, every day

    GAP program improves patients’ quality of care | Single Article

    Two Newborns Misidentified Every Day in PA

    White Plains (NY) Hospital Center has embraced its “Exceptional Every Day” motto to create a culture aimed at constantly improving the patient experience. Staff who sometimes are considered “behind the scenes” support are encouraged to feel more like part of the care team.

    Such a cultural change has to be nurtured by senior leadership until everyone sees that the effort is sincere and produces measurable results, says Leigh Anne McMahon, DNP, MHA, RN, NEA-BC, vice president and chief nursing officer.

    “Slowly, we saw the staff start using ‘exceptional every day’ when they talked about their own work, their units, and then we began seeing patients using those words when they talked about their experience here,” she says.

    “That’s when we realized the brand was real. We feel passionate about being exceptional every day, and as new employees come in we want them to feel privileged to work here because they’re going to be exceptional every day,” McMahon adds.

    The culture change included a number of initiatives to improve quality at the hospital, and one focus was environmental services, which typically did not score as well on the Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HCAHPS) survey as White Plains expected, given their superior performance by other measures.

    Encouraging Teamwork

    Inculcating the “exceptional every day” philosophy helped the housekeeping staff achieve some of the organization’s best HCAHPS results, McMahon notes.

    Responding to the question “How often were your room and bathroom kept clean?” in 2015, 72.1% of surveyed patients said “always,” but that figure climbed to 79.4% in 2016 and now is at 85%.

    That improvement came after the hospital addressed poor morale, caused partly by union disputes, by focusing on the valuable role environmental services plays in quality and the overall patient experience.

    The hospital emphasized the education of housekeeping management and staff, including the development of interpersonal and communication skills, team accountability, and respect.

    “They were working very hard every day but they weren’t feeling exceptional. The key problem was that they weren’t connected to the idea that they were taking care of patients,” McMahon explains.

    “We began to address that and I told them that they were all patient safety officers first, [and] that if the OR wasn’t clean it didn’t matter how good the surgeon was. We saw them get more interactive with the staff, feeling more a part of the care team, speaking up when they saw something that needed attention.”

    When HCAHPS improvement goals were added to the contract for an environmental services contactor, it participated in the effort by providing outside training resources for managers and staff, as well as sharing industry best practices.

    Hospital leaders tracked the progress of the housekeeping staff and recognized their achievements with quarterly celebrations for all three shifts, which McMahon says helped them embrace the idea of patient-centered care and see their value as part of the care team.

    More Patient Interaction

    The housekeeping staff also received new red uniform tops that made them stand out from other staff, helping patients and co-workers recognize their contribution, McMahon says.

    Housekeeping staff typically are assigned to units and work with the same rooms and clinicians every day, helping them feel a part of the team, she says. They are included in all unit recognition, awards, and celebrations.

    “We helped them understand more what it was like to be a patient in the hospital, and as they began to feel more like part of the team caring for that person, they started interacting more in a positive way,” McMahon says.

    “They started knocking on doors before entering, talking with the patient, feeling more like they were helping that person rather than performing an environmental function and nothing else,” she says.

    “We started hearing from patients who named the staff members and complimented them on making their stay a better experience.”

    The hospital’s patient and family advisory council also advised that patients are not always aware that their rooms and bathrooms were cleaned each day, so White Plains changed the note cards that housekeepers left in the room when the patient was not present during the cleaning.

    The cards previously said “Sorry we missed you,” but that was sometimes interpreted as meaning housekeepers came by but did not clean the room. The new card says “It was a pleasure to serve you.”

    Housekeeping staff also began writing personal notes on the card, sometimes just a name and smiley face but sometimes a note of encouragement for the patient, McMahon says.

    That prompted patients to write thank you notes to the housekeeping staff — particularly when they knew the names of individuals — which sometimes included suggestions for how to improve a patient’s experience.

    (More information on the housekeeping experience can be found in a journal article authored by White Plains CEO Susan Fox. An abstract is available online at: https://bit.ly/2J1dxTb.)

    The department leader who led the effort with the housekeeping staff was promoted and is now transforming the food service staff in the same way, McMahon says, helping them better understand their role in the patient experience.

    “We’ve seen the courtesy scores of our hosts and hostesses in food service go up into the 80th percentile,” she says. “We’re seeing another group that did not feel very engaged start to feel important and like a valuable part of the care team. Now if they’re worried because this is the second tray they’ve picked up for this patient and she hasn’t eaten, they understand that they should say something to the nurse, that their concerns matter and people want to hear from them.”

    SOURCE

    • Leigh Anne McMahon, DNP, MHA, RN, NEA-BC, Vice President and Chief Nursing Officer, White Plains (NY) Hospital Center. Phone: (914) 681-1075. Email: lmcmahon@wphospital.org.

    Post a comment to this article

    Report Abusive Comment

    www.reliasmedia.com

    Hospital Peer Review

    View PDF
    Hospital Peer Review (Vol. 43, No. 7) - July 2018
    July 1, 2018

    Table Of Contents

    Focus Daily on Accreditation Issues to Ease Surveys

    HFAP Offers Tips on Top Survey Deficiencies

    Health System Reduces Opioids, Navigates Data Challenges

    ‘Exceptional Every Day’ Program Improves Quality and Safety

    Orthopedics Prove Especially Suited to BPCI Program

    Operational Silos Interfere With Quality Efforts, Report Says

    Begin Test

    Buy this Issue

    Financial Disclosure: Author Greg Freeman, Editor Jesse Saffron, Editor Jill Drachenberg, Nurse Planner Jill Winkler, Editorial Group Manager Terrey L. Hatcher, and Consulting Editor Patrice Spath report no consultant, stockholder, speaker’s bureau, research, or other financial relationships with companies having ties to this field of study.

    Shop Now: Search Products

    • Subscription Publications
    • Books & Study Guides
    • Webinars
    • Group & Site
      Licenses
    • State CME/CE
      Requirements

    Webinars And Events

    View All Events
    • Home
      • Home
      • Newsletters
      • Blogs
      • Archives
      • CME/CE Map
      • Shop
    • Emergency
      • All Products
      • Publications
      • Study Guides
      • Webinars
      • Group Sales
    • Hospital
      • All Products
      • Publications
      • Study Guides
      • Webinars
      • Group Sales
    • Clinical
      • All Products
      • Publications
      • Study Guides
      • Webinars
      • Group Sales
    • All Access
      • Subscribe Now
      • My Subscription
    • My Account
      • My Subscriptions
      • My Content
      • My Orders
      • My CME/CE
      • My Transcript
    • Help
    • Search
    • About Us
    • Sign In
    • Register
    Relias Media - Continuing Medical Education Publishing

    The trusted source for

    healthcare information and

    CONTINUING EDUCATION.

    Customer Service

    customerservice@reliasmedia.com

    U.S. and Canada: 1-800-688-2421

    International +1-404-262-5476

    Accounts Receivable

    1-800-370-9210
    ReliasMedia_AR@reliasmedia.com

    Mailing Address

    • 1010 Sync St., Suite 100
      Morrisville, NC 27560-5468
      USA

    © 2021 Relias. All rights reserved.

    Do Not Sell My Personal Information  Privacy Policy  Terms of Use  Contact Us  Reprints  Group Sales

    For DSR inquiries or complaints, please reach out to Wes Vaux, Data Privacy Officer, DPO@relias.com

    Design, CMS, Hosting & Web Development :: ePublishing