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What does quality mean in the eyes of a patient?

KERRI VINCENTI, MD | PHYSICIAN | JULY 1, 2016

One hot topic that has recently gained a relatively large amount of attention over almost all areas
of medicine is quality improvement. Hospitals have created dedicated senior-level positions to
oversee it, interdisciplinary councils have been formed to research and address it, and employees
are reminded daily, if not more often, of their role in implementing it in the form of various quality
benchmarks they are held accountable for (such as reduction in the number patient falls, increases
in the accuracy of the medical record, and identification of possible information gaps in the
system).

As an active participant on my hospital’s quality improvement council, I see first-hand how tedious
and arduous the process of identifying and affecting various quality initiatives can be. A truly
thoughtful project requires the input of multiple stakeholders including administrators, physicians,
nurses, technicians/technologists, receptionists, patients, and caregivers. I bring up the last groups
specifically because the main goals of these projects and initiatives are to improve patient care
and increase patient satisfaction. Unfortunately, too often, in an effort to complete a project, we
make assumptions on behalf of patients and their families and forget to actually ask them their
perspectives on the situation.

So what does quality mean in the eyes of a patient? After a recent hospitalization following the
birth of my second child, I was quickly reminded of how frightening it can be to be a patient (or in
my case, the parent of a patient). Being from the health care field, I was privy to the various
safety/quality practices in place to ensure proper name identification, medication administration,
fall precautions, and the like.
 From the perspective of the hospital, the system ran smoothly with various checks and balances
being appropriately met. From my perspective, however, there were a number of missing pieces in
my daughter’s care including unanswered questions, false assumptions, and “team-driven”
decisions that didn’t involve my input. These issues all boiled down to one key flaw in the
system: poor communication.

Through the experience, I realized that no matter how nice and attentive the nurses were or how
thorough the doctors were being, there was a gap between what they valued as an organization
and what I valued as a recipient of care. To each of the workers in the hospital, my child
represented just another filled bed; another patient to see prior to morning rounds; another
ordinary hospital illness.

   

When you are the patient, there is nothing ordinary about the experience, and the only thing that
matters is getting better or knowing there is a plan you are okay with to get you better. I realized
that quality for me meant staying informed and being a part of the conversation. Believing that my
voice and opinion mattered made a difference in my level of satisfaction despite the success of
any medical interventions. Needless to say, my idea of what quality is changed, and I intend to use
this knowledge when planning quality initiatives for my hospital so that our patients can be better
heard in the future.

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Kerri Vincenti
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article originally appeared in the American Resident

Image credit: Shutterstock.com
TAGGED AS: HOSPITAL, PATIENTS

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