Latest / Becker’s Healthcare Digital Health + Health IT / The Future of Patient-Centered Care: Strategies for Sustainable Healthcare

Transcript

The Future of Patient-Centered Care: Strategies for Sustainable Healthcare · Becker’s Healthcare Digital Health + Health IT

• 0:00
  Hi, everyone. This is Erica Carbajal with Becker's
• 0:03
  HealthCare. Thank you all for tuning in to
• 0:05
  this episode of the Becker's HealthCare podcast series.
• 0:09
  Today, we're gonna be discussing patient centric care
• 0:12
  and its impact on the future of health
• 0:14
  care organizations.
• 0:16
  Joining me for today's discussion is Faria Siddiqui,
• 0:19
  director of health care services at the Kaleidoscope
• 0:22
  Group. Faria, thank you so much for joining
• 0:25
  us today. Hi, Erica. Thanks for having me.
• 0:28
  Yeah. Before we delve into the topic, do
• 0:31
  you mind just sharing a bit about yourself
• 0:34
  and your work in health care?
• 0:35
  Yes. Of course. So as you said, I
• 0:38
  serve as the director of health care services
• 0:41
  at Kaleidoscope Group.
• 0:42
  We are a global change management consulting firm
• 0:46
  with over thirty years of experience in several
• 0:49
  business industries.
• 0:50
  I specifically work with our health care clients,
• 0:53
  so that's health care systems, global pharmaceutical companies,
• 0:57
  nonprofits,
• 0:58
  community organizations.
• 1:00
  And what we do together is we develop
• 1:03
  and execute both their internal and their external
• 1:05
  people strategies.
• 1:07
  So that means employee experience,
• 1:09
  organizational
• 1:10
  culture, patient experience,
• 1:12
  you know, different strategies on how to get
• 1:14
  involved in the community and so on.
• 1:17
  Yeah. Thanks, Priya. Some some wide ranging work
• 1:19
  there touching really all aspects when it comes
• 1:22
  to health care in terms of employees, organization,
• 1:24
  and patient
• 1:26
  experience.
• 1:27
  So patient centered care is at the forefront
• 1:31
  of health care strategies this year. It's a
• 1:33
  term that comes up a lot in conversations
• 1:35
  with health system leaders.
• 1:37
  So can you start there and share a
• 1:39
  bit about what are the essential elements of
• 1:42
  an effective
• 1:43
  patient centered care strategy and why?
• 1:46
  Yeah. You know, that's a great question.
• 1:48
  And I always say there's three high level
• 1:50
  points
• 1:51
  that I believe many organizations
• 1:53
  overlook when it comes to their patient experience
• 1:55
  strategies.
• 1:57
  And number one,
• 1:58
  prioritization.
• 1:59
  Prioritizing
• 2:00
  patient centered care. You know, we can have
• 2:03
  talks about this all day long,
• 2:05
  but we know that in reality, leaders of
• 2:07
  health care institutions are faced with so many
• 2:10
  competing priorities,
• 2:11
  especially now with all of these recent changes
• 2:14
  at a federal level,
• 2:15
  whether that's budget cuts, reimbursement
• 2:18
  changes,
• 2:19
  workforce and staffing issues,
• 2:21
  unionization,
• 2:22
  whatever it is. It is very easy to,
• 2:25
  you know, conduct a patient
• 2:27
  satisfaction survey,
• 2:28
  get the results, and let the results sit
• 2:31
  under a pile of other issues.
• 2:33
  If you let patient experience fall to the
• 2:35
  side, you will see the impact in all
• 2:37
  of your other priority areas because it is
• 2:39
  all connected.
• 2:41
  Number two,
• 2:43
  so important to include the entire patient journey.
• 2:46
  So a lot of times,
• 2:47
  people think that patient experience is just that
• 2:49
  interaction between the physician and the patient.
• 2:53
  It's actually all aspects of the patient journey
• 2:55
  through the health care system. So at Kaleidoscope
• 2:58
  Group, we have a seven step patient journey
• 3:01
  map, and that starts from, you know, health
• 3:03
  system promotion and prevention efforts. So how does
• 3:06
  a patient hear about the hospital system? Are
• 3:09
  they in community served, you know, through mobile
• 3:11
  clinics, workshops?
• 3:12
  What is the health care system doing to
• 3:14
  prevent disease at a community health level?
• 3:17
  And then it goes on, you know, to
• 3:18
  when the patient interacts with the front desk
• 3:20
  staff the first time they come in. Do
• 3:22
  they feel welcome? Do they feel like they
• 3:24
  belong? Is someone helping them figure out where
• 3:26
  to go?
• 3:27
  And it goes all the way, you know,
• 3:29
  to discharge and follow-up care.
• 3:31
  So all of these aspects need to be
• 3:33
  considered.
• 3:34
  And then number three, integration
• 3:37
  into workflows. So
• 3:38
  ensuring that patient centered care is baked into
• 3:42
  our workflows. That looks like, you know, as
• 3:44
  a clinician,
• 3:45
  are you conducting regular family rounds along with
• 3:49
  the rounds you do with your students and
• 3:50
  your residents?
• 3:51
  As a nurse, are you helping to educate
• 3:53
  the patient without, you know, medical jargon?
• 3:56
  As an admin, are you creating, you know,
• 3:59
  comfortable waiting areas, providing resources,
• 4:02
  helping patients understand their billing?
• 4:05
  These are things that need to be embedded
• 4:06
  into the day to day habits of each
• 4:09
  role, and that comes, you know, with the
• 4:11
  rules and the structures that we create for
• 4:13
  our daily workflows.
• 4:14
  Along with that, we also have to be
• 4:16
  ready for resistance to change. So anytime we
• 4:18
  ask people to change their behaviors,
• 4:20
  we will be met with, you know,
• 4:22
  I forgot or
• 4:24
  I don't want to or, you know, that
• 4:26
  doesn't make sense to me. All of these
• 4:28
  different ways that people resist change, and there
• 4:31
  needs to be a plan to address that.
• 4:33
  So, you know, the three things, three essential
• 4:35
  elements for an effective strategy and patient centered
• 4:38
  care,
• 4:39
  prioritization,
• 4:40
  the patient journey map, and integration into workflows.
• 4:45
  Yeah. Faria, and I think you raise an
• 4:47
  interesting point just around
• 4:49
  the fact that patient centered care and and
• 4:51
  strategizing around this really begins
• 4:54
  before the clinical care actually happens, as you
• 4:56
  mentioned. It's much much broader than that. And
• 4:59
  on that note, can you share a bit
• 5:01
  about where organizational
• 5:02
  culture fits in here, and how can health
• 5:04
  care systems support providers
• 5:06
  to ensure that they're actually able to deliver
• 5:09
  thoughtful, compassionate care?
• 5:11
  Yeah. So like I said, providers are not
• 5:15
  solely responsible for patient experience.
• 5:18
  However, they tend to shoulder the most responsibility.
• 5:22
  We can't expect our, you know, physicians,
• 5:25
  our PAs, our nurse staff who are face
• 5:27
  to face with patients playing so many different
• 5:30
  roles already. Right?
• 5:31
  They're taking the history. They're doing the physical
• 5:34
  exam.
• 5:35
  They're diagnosing.
• 5:36
  They're also thinking of billing issues. They're scribing.
• 5:40
  Sometimes they're also teachers. Right? If they have
• 5:42
  students or residents in the room.
• 5:44
  And all of this while encounters are limited
• 5:47
  to maybe ten, fifteen minutes.
• 5:50
  At the same time, we're also asking them
• 5:52
  to ensure that the patient has an amazing
• 5:54
  experience, answer their questions, talk to their families,
• 5:56
  etcetera, etcetera.
• 5:58
  To do this effectively,
• 6:00
  we need
• 6:01
  to
• 6:01
  have a team
• 6:03
  to help support this objective. It can't all
• 6:05
  fall onto the shoulders of the health care
• 6:07
  worker.
• 6:09
  At the same time, we also need to
• 6:10
  realize that health care workers are human.
• 6:13
  Right? And they're dealing with an organizational culture
• 6:16
  in medicine and in health care that is
• 6:18
  not very forgiving.
• 6:20
  We are seeing this trend of unionization
• 6:23
  post COVID,
• 6:24
  and demands that these health care workers are
• 6:26
  making are actually very simple. Right? Give us
• 6:28
  a salary that we can survive on. Give
• 6:31
  us a holiday once in a while. Protect
• 6:33
  us from the growing levels of patient violence.
• 6:37
  If we want to ask health care workers
• 6:38
  to have empathy for their patients,
• 6:41
  we as health care leaders need to also
• 6:42
  have that empathy for our health care workers
• 6:45
  and create an organizational culture which helps them
• 6:48
  do that.
• 6:49
  Yeah, absolutely. I think a lot of this
• 6:52
  bolts back
• 6:53
  to what we hear from, again, a lot
• 6:55
  of health system leaders just around
• 6:57
  placing more intentional focus and energy around
• 7:01
  alleviating
• 7:02
  physicians and clinicians from administrative burdens and really
• 7:06
  being able to focus on what they enjoy
• 7:08
  doing most and what they are trained to
• 7:10
  do, which is, you know, patient care. And
• 7:13
  so all of this is so interrelated.
• 7:16
  Fria, on the technology side, obviously,
• 7:18
  a major area in focus when it comes
• 7:21
  to patient engagement.
• 7:22
  How can organizations
• 7:24
  ensure that their technology on the technology side
• 7:27
  of things, that they're meeting the needs of
• 7:29
  diverse populations?
• 7:32
  Yeah. You know, currently, we are living in
• 7:34
  times where DE and I work is being
• 7:37
  censored.
• 7:38
  And, you know, that's fine,
• 7:40
  if you don't wanna use the words,
• 7:41
  whatever your politics are. But nobody can deny
• 7:45
  the fact that we are all different,
• 7:48
  whether that's, you know, diversity and race,
• 7:50
  physical ability,
• 7:52
  geographic location, education level, income level,
• 7:55
  every person is different.
• 7:57
  And as a business leader, if you ignore
• 7:59
  this fact, you will see the impact in
• 8:02
  your bottom line. And how does that show
• 8:04
  up? So as a health tech founder, if
• 8:07
  you are not including diverse perspectives when it
• 8:09
  comes to user experience,
• 8:11
  you will find it difficult in the implementation
• 8:13
  phase. So if a patient can't, you know,
• 8:16
  read the font on your screen, if there's
• 8:18
  no option for different languages, if there's no
• 8:21
  option to connect to a human in the
• 8:23
  virtual help desk, you know, versus AI,
• 8:25
  whatever it is, if it becomes difficult, patients
• 8:29
  will simply not use your app.
• 8:31
  And similarly, as a health care system leader,
• 8:33
  if you are choosing to invest in applications
• 8:36
  that are ultimately ineffective,
• 8:38
  that's money that's going down the drain.
• 8:41
  There are people, you know, whose role it
• 8:42
  is to consider which apps or AI apps
• 8:44
  are worth the investment of the hospital system.
• 8:47
  And really, it's the ones that people use.
• 8:50
  So, you know, how can tech meet the
• 8:52
  needs of diverse patients? The most important way
• 8:54
  to do this,
• 8:56
  and the most simple way to do this
• 8:57
  is to include diverse perspectives throughout the building
• 9:00
  stages of your app.
• 9:02
  Sometimes in the tech world, we can be
• 9:04
  very caught up, you know, in features and
• 9:06
  functions,
• 9:07
  making investors happy, all of the things that
• 9:09
  it takes to build an app. And we
• 9:12
  forget the basics.
• 9:13
  How are people using this app? Does it
• 9:15
  work for them? What are their complaints?
• 9:18
  What issues have they asked for while troubleshooting?
• 9:21
  Make sure that you have diverse groups of
• 9:23
  people test your app out and listen to
• 9:26
  their feedback. It's really as simple as that.
• 9:29
  Briha, looking ahead, how can patient centered care
• 9:32
  support the long term sustainability
• 9:34
  of health care organizations?
• 9:36
  What can leaders be doing now to ensure
• 9:38
  that this concept is meaningfully put into practice
• 9:41
  and at scale?
• 9:43
  Yeah. As we, you know, continue to see
• 9:46
  budget cuts in Medicare, Medicaid, changes in
• 9:51
  language and research funding and all of the
• 9:53
  other impacts of the,
• 9:55
  new administration's executive orders,
• 9:58
  it will be very easy to let patient
• 10:00
  centered care fall to the side.
• 10:03
  But I will say, you know, whoever chooses
• 10:05
  to ignore the patient,
• 10:07
  they will see the impact of that in
• 10:09
  their quality scores,
• 10:10
  in their health outcomes, in their reimbursement rates,
• 10:14
  honestly, in your lawsuits and in your health
• 10:16
  care system reputations. Right? So I can tell
• 10:19
  you a simple story. In my neighborhood where
• 10:22
  I grew up, all of my friends who
• 10:24
  are moms, they know, you know, which hospital
• 10:27
  to avoid for their OB GYN care and
• 10:29
  their labor and delivery,
• 10:31
  and they know which hospital is best for
• 10:33
  that type of care. And they all go
• 10:34
  to that one instead.
• 10:35
  So reputation amongst your community really says everything
• 10:39
  about how they are experiencing your hospital system
• 10:41
  and which system your consumers are actually gonna
• 10:44
  use for their care.
• 10:45
  So,
• 10:47
  making sure that this patient centered care is
• 10:50
  sustainable at your organization is very important.
• 10:52
  And how can you ensure that it's sustainable?
• 10:55
  At Kaleidoscope Group,
• 10:57
  we have the three c's to sustainable change
• 10:59
  management. In
• 11:01
  true consulting fashion, we have an acronym to
• 11:03
  make everything easier for everybody.
• 11:06
  The three c's are commitment, course, and competence.
• 11:10
  And commitment comes at two different levels. The
• 11:12
  first is executive commitment.
• 11:15
  Commitment from the c suite looks like appropriate
• 11:18
  resources and budgeting,
• 11:20
  guidance for committees and groups led with the
• 11:22
  charge for change,
• 11:23
  speaking up publicly and advocating.
• 11:26
  Without commitment from the c suite, you are
• 11:28
  not gonna have a sustainable level of infrastructure.
• 11:29
  And it's gonna
• 11:30
  infrastructure.
• 11:31
  And it's going to be interesting to see,
• 11:33
  you know, as we continue to see the
• 11:35
  impact of federal level changes where commitment is
• 11:38
  at the C suite.
• 11:39
  And then commitment can also
• 11:41
  come from a change agent level at each
• 11:44
  department. So that's nurse staff of patient experience,
• 11:48
  medical billing staff of patient experience, someone who
• 11:51
  is committed to bettering the patient experience within
• 11:55
  their sphere of influence
• 11:57
  and is ready to manage the issues that
• 11:59
  come up with implementation.
• 12:01
  Number two, course, we've talked about this a
• 12:03
  bit already.
• 12:04
  Development of a clear strategic plan where patient
• 12:07
  experience is
• 12:09
  not just, you know, a couple of folks
• 12:11
  in a department,
• 12:12
  but it is integrated into the daily workflow
• 12:15
  of each person in the health care patient
• 12:17
  journey.
• 12:18
  And number three, competence, ensuring your employees are
• 12:21
  educated and competent in implementing these changes. So
• 12:24
  that's like,
• 12:25
  how are these
• 12:26
  how are how are they being educated on
• 12:28
  these changes? How are they being supported when
• 12:31
  they have questions? Is there someone they can
• 12:32
  go
• 12:33
  to, for help?
• 12:35
  So those are the three c's, commitment, course,
• 12:37
  and competence.
• 12:39
  Bria, is there anything else before we close
• 12:41
  out? We didn't cover on the topic that
• 12:43
  you wanted to mention.
• 12:45
  Yeah. You know, we are in interesting times
• 12:47
  right now with the new administration changes. We
• 12:50
  are still seeing the downstream impacts of how
• 12:53
  our industry functions.
• 12:55
  We are seeing changes to women's health, LGBTQ
• 12:58
  health,
• 12:59
  removal of equity based programming and research funding,
• 13:03
  potential changes to how Medicare and Medicaid reimburses.
• 13:07
  Regardless of your politics, these are huge changes
• 13:10
  that we are gonna continue to grapple with
• 13:13
  and, continue to see how they impact our
• 13:16
  functioning within a health care system on a
• 13:18
  day to day basis
• 13:19
  and what outcomes we're gonna face for those
• 13:21
  functioning decisions. So throughout all of this change,
• 13:24
  I wanna urge our health care leaders who
• 13:26
  are listening.
• 13:28
  Number one,
• 13:29
  go back to your values. You know, you
• 13:30
  will have to face decisions on how to
• 13:32
  manage this change.
• 13:34
  Don't let your patients become deprioritized.
• 13:37
  Number two, stay agile, stay growth minded, stay
• 13:40
  innovative through the change.
• 13:42
  And number three, we always encourage honest and
• 13:45
  empathetic communication to your staff and to your
• 13:48
  public
• 13:49
  because when it comes to leading change rather
• 13:51
  than letting change lead you, the number one
• 13:53
  thing is maintaining trust.
• 13:56
  Maria, thank you so much for being on
• 13:58
  today. We appreciate your insights.
• 14:00
  Thank you for having me, Erica. It was
• 14:02
  it was a pleasure.
• 14:03
  Yeah. Absolutely.
• 14:04
  And we also wanna thank our podcast sponsor,
• 14:07
  the Kaleidoscope Group. And listeners, you can tune
• 14:10
  into additional podcast episodes by visiting the podcast
• 14:14
  page on our website at beckershospitalreview.com.
• 14:18
  Thanks, everyone.