Providing a great patient experience and making patient engagement work is easier said than done. It requires, among other things, buy-in from senior administrators and acceptance from patients. In its population health efforts, The University of Chicago Medicine has achieved critical stakeholder buy-in and has successfully engaged patients, providing them with a great experience while meeting the demands of a value-based system.

The C-suite is very engaged in population health and providing an enhanced experience to patients, said Debra Albert, RN, chief nursing officer and senior vice president of patient care services at The University of Chicago Medicine.

“How we engage the senior leadership team is in part by showing the data around the actions we are taking and the outcomes we are achieving,” Albert said. “Our chief experience and innovation officer has really worked with our vendors and has been able to demonstrate to the senior leaders down to the front-line operational leaders the impact of improvements to our patients. We use data to demonstrate the efficacy of our actions.”

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The focus on value-based care and its impact on public reporting and reimbursement has put patient satisfaction on the radar screen all the way up to the board of trustees, Albert added.

“It’s really about the trust and relationships in building the data that everyone needs to see, to understand how it all connects together,” said Sue Murphy, RN, chief experience and innovation officer, patient experience and engagement program, at The University of Chicago Medicine. “One thing we do in keeping senior leaders involved is send information to them in a very data-driven, date-based fashion, so they know they will see certain patient experience outcomes metrics, for example, between the 15th and the 18th of every month. And the senior vice president of patient care services works on the operational council, routinely bringing data and actions to those meetings.”

When it comes to enhancing the patient experience, Albert and Murphy make sure the patients themselves are heavily involved in the process.

“For instance, we have the Best Practice Forum, where every quarter we bring in patients who have had good experiences, fill up an auditorium with caregivers from throughout the organization, and behind the patients sit all the caregivers who helped them – physicians, nurses, respiratory therapists, valets, food services staff members, everyone,” Murphy explained. “The patient tells her story of the best things that happened to her. And then we give the caregivers the opportunity to tell the whole 300 or so members of the audience what they do every day to make these kinds of things happen.”

Every time the organization has a major discussion about an addition, something new that will affect patients, it strives to make sure patients are at the table, Murphy added. “Their feedback is invaluable.”