Building a "One Team" Culture in Healthcare

<p>one thing we actually just started uh from the patient experience leadership team is you know we were always going out and being present in the hospital that's not new but something that we've started is doing just like we ask our nurses to do purposeful interval rounding we've started doing purposeful rounding as patient experience leaders welcome to the CX matters podcast a production of the American Journal of healthcare strategy with your host Cole lions hello everybody this is Cole from the American Journal of healthc care strategy on the CX matters podcast joined by a special guest with many years of experience in the patient experience space Caitlyn Moser Caitlyn can you please go ahead and introduce yourself into your role yeah hi everyone so uh like Cole mentioned my name is Caitlyn I'm the currently the senior director of patient experience at Medstar Washington Hospital Center in Washington DC um so very fortunate to lead not only patient experience here at the hospital Center but interpreter services and volunteer services so I'm excited to dive in important areas right interpreter Services especially is a major uh area of frustration for many institutions so I think it's good that we're we're speaking with you uh about that uh I wanted to ask how did you find yourself in the patient experience area I know it says on the resume you went to school for kind of uh it says Hotel restaurant institutional management and of course you got your ba from John's Hopkins so why patient experience though I'm sure you would have been very successful managing hotels or doing anything else in the customer experience realm uh but you went into patient experience so why is that yeah so it definitely was like as you already said it was not a linear journey by any means um so right after college uh I thought that like if you would ask me at that time what do you think you'll be doing in five years I was like I'm going to be a general manager of a high-end restaurant um and oh how quickly things change so um just about a year into my restaurant management career um it was a fantastic experience I really enjoyed like the pace of uh restaurants especially the high-end Restaurant Group that I worked for um I just wasn't getting that you know personal satisfaction from the work um I actually I ended up finding out about myself that you know I really wasn't passionate about creating experience es when folks and our guests were expecting it I like to create that kind of surprise and exceptional experience for folks who are not necessarily experiencing it so um you know I was doing a little bit more soul searching if you will and the the guests that I could think of that you know definitely wouldn't be expecting to have an exceptional experience are our patients right and who better to create an amazing experience for are those folks who are not necessarily going through the best time in their lives so I uh was very fortunate to already be connected to a family friend who worked for a hospital in Maryland so I I actually started my health care career in on more of the operation side so I worked um to build up this Hospital's patient and guest services programs then their telecommunications programs and then their Central patient transport programs with a lot of opportunities for project management in between um at the time I was told that patient experience is actually a nursing function yeah and I did not have a nursing background but that's really where I was ex you know I was very interested in so I ended up leaving healthcare for a very brief period of time because I thought well what I really want to do is specifically designated and reserved for those who have had a nursing career um and I didn't see myself going back to school for nursing um so I got I transitioned to Consulting and then I was very fortunate to be contacted um about an experience at Medstar Washington Hospital Center where they were you know open to an opportunity for somebody who did not have a nursing background so that's how I actually got my foot into patient experience was through the great opportunity with MedStar wow I think we're we're glad that you're in the industry because speak you know that that thing that you said at the beginning where having experiences where they are not expecting it that describes Healthcare perfectly right I mean health care or the Red Roof in or something right I mean you know kind of limited there no offense to the Red Roof I've stayed the Red Roof in many times um sure so yeah but still right I mean it's you know you can even have the best hospital you know facility uh with you know the most prestigious doctors and people are still like really you know going to be dragging their feet going in or even things as simple as a colonoscopy because it's something that's not generally comfortable to deal with right so that's a I think I could see why you're in this career right that's a perfect area um it's interesting about that that nursing kind of side of things do you think that is true to an extent or or not really is that a complete misnomer that nursing and is or experience rather is a nursing field yeah so well I I would like to say I 100% understand why someone with a nursing background would be such a strong candidate for a patient experience leader because patient experience really begins and ends with nursing right our nurses have such an important role as it relates to the patient experience so I think someone who has that clinical background so whether it's nursing or clinical background in another element um maybe you were in respiratory therapy or p u physical therapy or something of that nature I I know quite a few patient experienced leaders who have actually had those specific backgrounds um I absolutely see the benefit so I think in my own perspective it's like yeah I do find sometimes that I have to make up for that lack of understanding but um in other ways I see it as a strength because I feel as though it kind of opens it allows us to have um more of that open conversation about what are the possibilities um so I don't know what should happen necessarily at the bedside or what traditionally happens at the bedside in every instance so I think there is that element of um you know could we maybe change it and have you know more improved experience so I think there are strengths to both sides I really do absolutely I've seen that as well that it's challenging when it's you know just a physician experience officer or just a nurse experience officer it's best when there's a team of collaborators who each have their own strength and Specialties and that's when you get that mix of kind of the financial the management the operational and then you also get that clinical background all tied together so I agree it's it's a strength and there's also opportunities for strength on your team and that's kind of the question too for you is how many people are on your team I mean you know this is a large institution a lot of patients that you're you're dealing with yeah so um I mean if we talk about the team that's focused on patient experience we could say thousands are of folks are on our of Associates are on our team because everyone's working towards this one team patient experience but um um you know formally I have 10 folks on our patient experience Team 15 on 15 team members on interpreter services do you when you say that you have thousand on your team throughout the organization everyone's looking at it I have never heard someone say that before uh no offense to my previous patient experience guests of course but that's a unique approach is that something that you've experienced that's unique to to Medstar yeah I would I would say uh it's definitely been unique in my Healthcare experience in in terms of um the excitement and the enthusiasm behind patient experience is not just in nursing it's not just on the opx team um I think our opx team is certainly looked at as the subject matter experts right so we're here to guide the Improvement um and the delivery of the best patient experience but we're not necessarily the folks who are going to get the job done right that's going to be all of us together so we actually have a saying here at Medstar Washington Hospital Center of one team um and it's always written in all caps and it's on just about every email you receive and it's not just a slogan with no meaning it's a slogan that um as soon as you become an associate here at the hospital Center you learn about it you know it you love it and you embrace it how much of your role falls under that employee experience realm because it it would be very important that that one team motto is really felt by everyone in order to have that patient experience succeed so how how much of that is part of your role that's a good question um I I'd like to say I'd like to say 5050 but um I mean our approach is always how can we make the best patient experience by ways of our Associates right so if you know you could argue 5050 I could also argue 100% of the time because we're really focused on you know we know what best practices in B in patient experience how do we make that happen how do we gain that buy in from our Associates and make it a valuable experience for them as well um so you don't achieve one in a silo right where you have to do both yeah right absolutely I struggle sometimes because you come into an organ I mean you know um I think at MedStar the the SE Suite from what I know of everybody the leadership is is really excellent but sometimes you still encounter these scenarios despite having committed leaders at the senior level where employees are just frustrated with the situation they're frustrated whether it's with the pay and the external economy or they're frustrated with operational procedures and things that cannot be fixed right away that's something that I have dealt with I have dealt with uh I've seen it actually firstand where employees are mad about their insurance policy that they were given from work and some changes that have been going on with that and that just creates this frustration how do you or do you have any tips on how to motivate and encourage employees and encourage our team members uh through times of challenge like that yeah I mean I think I could give the the best response from like a leadership perspective for other leaders right so I think the best way to approach it is to just not to sound corny or to use an overly used term but it's that open door policy like how are how are we going out making ourselves available for when folks do need us but then also going out and asking for that specific feedback so um one thing we actually just started uh from the patient experience leadership team is you know we were always going out and being present in the hospital that's not new but something that we've started is doing just like we ask our nurses to do purposeful interval rounding we've started doing purposeful rounding as patient experience leaders so it's not just going to our patients asking about about um you know what do you think about these programs for rolling out in the hospital how's your experience been we're actually talking to our Associates at that time and asking them about the programs we have here at the hospital Center you know how do you feel about your experience is there anything that we could do uh in opx to remove any barriers for you do you have any frustrations at this time that we could help you move past or you know create a solution around so I I think it's that you know dual approach of being available being approachable but then also going out and soliciting for that feedback and I think sure I'm mentioning a specific program we have in the office of patient experience but I think that's something that is an absolute strength and I see is done across many if not all departments here at Medstar Washington um we do a great job of doing Town Halls my voice survey is our biannual survey and the best part about our survey is um our leadership team communicates every time A Change Is made and it's related to a suggestion on my voice they let everyone know this was from our Associates so they do a fantastic job of tying associate feedback to specific outcomes and that's that's really important no it's it's vital because I I worked at Walmart for a while I did um I did oil changes I also did some process Improvement in the oil change department and so one of the issues that we had seen with uh trying to get any processes changed is uh suggestions would go unused for years um or uh there would be a bunch of suggestions and then uh somebody else would claim credit or something you know like that that would just upset people so I love that idea that's a great tip so if an employee suggests something and it gets implemented make sure to let everybody know that this is a suggest that had come through that's smart I like that a lot how do we go about establishing one of these rounding programs for example what are what are some of the first steps to get this started I'm thinking at maybe some of the smaller institutions which haven't had this or maybe they're trying to try something different to boost their metrics what are they supposed to do to get off the ground yeah absolutely we actually launched ours really quickly um because again it wasn't necessarily a like a a new practice it was a practice change like how are we showing up for our Associates and our patients of course too so um I think it was just a matter of laying structure so what we did as a leadership team we came together so we have a team of five um it's our two patient experience Specialists myself our director of patient experience and volunteer services and then our manager of interpreter Services as well so we're actually going out and we said okay what are all the things that we want to check on that are um functional but also like equipment specific so we're checking not only for you know our checking in with our patients and we set a metric of how many patients we should check in um for on each unit how many units we're going to round to each month how we're tracking it just using something as simple as Microsoft forms and we did this all within one meeting and then we said okay what has to be on the unit so we said these the marketing materials that need to be on the unit list those out this is the these are The Interpreter Services equipment that we need to make sure are readily available on the unit we also have to ask Associates do you know where to find your video relay interpretation system um so we very quickly came up with a checklist just in a a 30 minute collaborative meeting and we then we talked about okay what are the questions we want to talk to with our P or speak to with our patient and then what are the questions we want to ask our Associates next thing you know we have a a beautiful checklist we have a Microsoft form and we're ready to go wow that is so cool I love that that's great I like and you use Microsoft forms you said for that that's yeah Microsoft forms it's it's my uh my dream platform I use it for everything that is smart no that's that and I I appreciate you giving us some actionable advice I I have a question um and it's it's about The Interpreter Services as I mentioned we know that there's frustration because it seems like it some institutions have this struggle where it's a kind of a clunky process and it gets lost under the office of the COO or or one of those other offices and it gets kind of you know thrown around it's also very expensive and so it's kind of this challenging area where it's often expensive and then detracting from The Experience why was it placed under your kind of Direction was it for that reason to try to enhance the experience yeah that's a great question I don't know if I can speak to why it was placed with me because it's it was in the infrastructure when I uh was promoted into the role of the senior director if I had to guess the way that I always say I'm very lucky and I I'm I um appreciate that interpreter Services falls under patient experience because our patients who are Li have limited English proficiency can't access their patient experience without interpreter services so it's an Avenue to Patient experience if you do not speak English um in our organization so I think it's a beautiful partnership um and both they complement one another so well do you do you ever feel like it's it's overworking or would you or overburdening you or would you recommend other institutions to look into this as well putting them under that experience realm well so I'm a little biased because I am extremely fortunate that that um our manager of interpreter Services was actually one of our staff American Sign Language interpreters here at the hospital Center for 10 years so she transitioned into the manager role just about a year ago she's implemented so many positive changes I can't say it's a burden because I have Nicole Manuel uh on my side so hopefully no one goes and like tries to steal Nicole n from me because she's amazing but um but I have to give her a shout out because she's been doing such great work so um I would recommend that interpreter Services falls under patient experience specifically why you know what I spoke to before um I just think they the two functions complement each other nicely so when Nicole is going out and she's doing patient experience purposeful rounding as a member of our leadership team she can speak really well to the patient experience as a prior interpreter um but also just somebody who's very passionate about her patients accessing uh their experience I appreciate that a lot because it you know when she's out there she like you said she has her personal experience but she's gonna be able to to look for those areas that you know other people on the team or even in the organization might not always notice I know for myself when I was a medical assistant you only notice the problems with you know The Interpreter services at the moment and you get frustrated and then you don't think of it you know until the next day when it happens again right so I I that's a great idea idea um is there anything that you have done to make sure interpreter services are easier to access or is more streamlined one of the things we've seen is it's almost like a tax these patients have to pay in terms of their time just for not speaking English and so I'm always interested in strategies to try to remove that barrier yeah absolutely so um I think something that is definitely a benefit and one of our strengths as an organization but also just like from our community is we are very fortunate to sit geographically in a very diverse area um and our Associates our patient population it we have a very diverse community so with that being said we have the patient need for a onsite uh interpreter team so one of the strengths that we're able to have because of the patient need is that we have staff interpreters full-time part-time PRN who know and love this organization they're not necessarily coming in from an agency which is wonderful we have Fant we still have agency interpreters and we are very fortunate to have great Partnerships uh with those agencies but um yeah it's such a strength to have staff interpreters who understand more than just interpreting as it relates to the organization they understand the culture they understand the processes of of the organization um so I think from an access standpoint anyone at the hospital Center can call a phone number 247 and get access to a on-site interpreter um or our on call interpreter who can then um you know uh basically facilitate that an on-site interpreter gets there as soon as possible beyond that we just you know we make sure that uh our language line uh is our VRI and over the phone interpreter partnership uh or vendor partner and they do a fantastic job of um you know making sure that we have enough equipment here at the hospital Center so that an interpreter is readily available that's so there's no hunting for the the you know video card or anything like that right or we try to minimize that by you know language line will come in and they'll actually do audits of the building to say that we do have enough where it should be um and then again like kind of tying back to that purposeful rounding that we do as Leaders we're making sure that Associates know that it's readily available maybe not necessarily just when they need to know it I like that I mean nothing against you know just the the phone I think it's it works of course but that face Toof face or of course ideally in person I've seen the differences firsthand I mean I'm sure you have as well right it makes a huge difference yeah no it absolutely does and especially for you know we have a significant population of um patients who are deaf and American Sign Language I am learning Cole okay so I did not know much about American Sign Language but our team has taught me so much it's a it's a I believe they said 3D or 4D language so in you actually really should be with a in-person interpreter to fully understand how they're communting communicating because an interpreter is leaning based off of the T of the so hopefully I'm doing that Justice I am not a subject matter expert Nico takes care of that for us but we're gonna have to bring Nicole on then after I think you should yes yeah yes absolutely because it's an issue that that is close to to my heart because I speak with members all day and uh there are some that get very very frustrated by over the phone interpreters or uh just by the fact of the language barrier in general it's you know dealing with health situations is challenging so um great advice well thank you so much for coming on Caitlyn our time goes by so quick but hopefully we can have you back on uh and maybe other members of your team as well to discuss this further oh yeah absolutely thanks for having me Cole</p>