3 takeaways from this year’s patient experience conference

As certified patient experience professionals (CPXPs), our SONIFI Health clinical team is committed to staying up-to-date with the latest patient experience trends and innovations.

One of the ways our nurses do this is by attending the annual patient experience-focused conference from our friends at The Beryl Institute, ELEVATE PX.

Here are three major themes the team picked up at this year’s conference, and what they mean for your hospital and staff.

Communication & perception

Throughout the entire conference, in both general and breakout sessions, there was an emphasis on good communication.

This includes communication from leadership to staff, staff to patients, patient experience teams to physicians, and everything in between.

Some of the key highlights included:

• Not always needing to be right
  There’s always more than one way to approach a situation. It doesn’t mean your solution is more or less “right” than others. But it does mean what’s best for the patient and their care in that moment is sometimes going to be another person’s idea.
• Listening and responding rather than reacting
  Sometimes people just want to be heard. You can validate a person’s feelings not just by acknowledging them, but by including them in your suggestions for next steps.
• Helping others connect the dots
  Along those same lines, by listening, you’re gathering vital information from all parties. Doing this can help you keep everyone on the same page by sharing perspectives between conversations among providers, patients, families, and staff.

Hand-in-hand with communication was remembering to consider the patient’s perception of what is being said.

Most patients aren’t in the medical environment day in and day out the way you are. They may not understand the terminology in conversations or pick up on when co-workers are being friendly in how they reference things.

Even if you’re providing a good message, inflection and phrasing can come off as hurtful, sarcastic, or condescending to patients.

The words we say are important. But just as important is how we say them.

Health equity

Equity and inclusion are essential to the human experience in healthcare.

All patients have the right to be cared for in the ways that matter most to them, and in the language and terms that they can comprehend.

Beryl supports the global What Matters to You (WMTY) movement and how this can lead to better quality outcomes and strong roots for change within organizations.

Many presentations also focused on the importance of assessing social determinants of health (SDOH) in improving health equity for patients.

Embracing Equity-Centered Design (ECD) can help your hospital address some of these systemic inequities that affect patient care.

Diversity and inclusivity are key to include within Patient and Family Advisory Councils (PFACs) so everyone within a community is represented in helping your organization plan for the future.

Staff engagement & experience

Staff engagement is a theme that we have seen in past patient experience conferences, and this year there was more emphasis than ever on the importance of the staff experience and how it influences the patient experience.

As one presenter shared, fostering hope and trust with bedside staff is the building block for driving organizational purpose.

When your staff—and this can be everyone from on-floor nurses and physicians to floating volunteers and staff from other departments—feels supported and like part of team, they’re more confident in their role and the care they provide patients.

Another presenter shared data that supported a correlation between staff experience and patient experience. The message and statistical evidence clearly show that when staff experience improves, patient experience also improves.

When an organization invests in the well-being of their staff—using technology to simplify workflows, for example—it improves the overall staff experience.

In another session, it was noted that the What Matters to You movement can be used within an organization to also learn What Matters to Staff, setting the stage for organizations, the people who are part of it, and the work they do to all succeed.