Decades ago, when Lisa Drumbore was sitting, anxious and alone, in the employee cafeteria on her first day as an intern at the WQED Public Broadcasting Service station in Pittsburgh, a man asked if he could join her for lunch. To her astonishment, it was Fred Rogers, who filmed the beloved "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood" at WQED.
During what Drumbore recalls as a wonderful chat, Rogers offered to divulge the three key elements of his success. He told an attentive Drumbore that the first element was to be kind. The second was to be kind. And the third? Be kind.
Drumbore says this advice resonates now more than ever in her role as chief patient experience officer at Saint Peter's Healthcare System in New Brunswick, New Jersey. She feels that "kindness and empathy and meeting people where they are" are essential to delivering mission-based care to patients.
Drumbore, who also is vice president of marketing and communications, is one of the patient experience experts at ministry facilities who take on the formidable challenge of ensuring that the employees are providing care that fully reflects the organizations' mission, vision and values. These experts say for patient experience to live up to what the organizations are promising, associates must be well-equipped to deliver on those promises.
"What we are doing at Saint Peter's is highly complex, and very strategic, but at the core is the element of humble service to our fellow humans, and a focus on human dignity at all stages of life," Drumbore says. "How we ensure that happens — that's the magic that is so simple but yet so complex in healthcare."
Striking a balance
At CommonSpirit Health, which has over 160,000 employees working at more than 2,300 care sites in 24 states, the mission is to "make the healing presence of God known in our world by improving the health of the people we serve, especially those who are vulnerable, while we advance social justice for all," says Camille Haycock, CommonSpirit Health senior vice president, patient experience. CommonSpirit is striking a continual balance between a focus on the hard science of measuring and improving patient experience and the soft science of ensuring employees are conveying to patients and their loved ones that they and their experiences matter.
For the hard science aspect of the work, CommonSpirit has been perfecting how it measures patient experience through surveys and related composite scores. The system has been standardizing how its team leaders train, mentor and coach all employees to implement the soft science of showing kindness and respect.
Haycock says this patient experience work is embedded into all of CommonSpirit's operations and into the balanced scorecards that every facility uses to guide decision-making. She says it all maps back to the system's mission, vision and values. "It's a colossal fail if we do not deliver on kindness," she says.
Sacred encounter
Jen Bayersdorfer, Providence St. Joseph Health chief quality officer, says at her system, which has about 119,000 employees working in more than 1,000 facilities across seven states, patient experience work is directly connected with the goal of creating space for sacred encounters, particularly between employees and patients.
That system has concentrated on fostering a culture in which associates are equipped with the tools required to immediately address patient wants and needs.
Providence has worked with its vendor partners that secure patient feedback to ensure the health system and its facilities get that feedback in a quick, actionable way. Multidisciplinary teams at both the system and facility levels use the findings as well as anecdotal feedback to continually improve how everyone engages with patients. It is all about how the patients perceive that employees make them feel, says Bayersdorfer.
Accountability to mission
Saint Peter's is a standalone, diocese-sponsored system in New Jersey that includes the 478-bed Saint Peter's University Hospital, a children's hospital, a joint venture surgery center and a network of outpatient sites.
Drumbore says people generally have felt there has been a "dehumanization" in society, especially since the pandemic. A goal of Saint Peter's has been to make sure every associate is accountable for Saint Peter's mission, vision and values that focus on humanizing healthcare.
She says senior leaders and the system's diocesan sponsor are closely involved in making this happen.
Drumbore notes that some of the survey scores that the system watches closely have to do with being the provider and employer of choice. Saint Peter's healthcare facilities are among the top three in the state on the Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems, or HCAHPS, survey from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
"Our approach is based on human dignity and service," Drumbore says.
Delighting patients
Julie Spencer Washington is executive vice president, chief marketing, communications and customer experience officer at Trinity Health. She joined the system from the consumer retail sector where "the consumer is boss," and she says that credo speaks to the importance of listening to and understanding patients and their loved ones and being sure to meet them where they are.
At Trinity Health, which has 133,000 colleagues and 38,900-plus physicians and clinicians across 23 states, patient experience leaders work closely with interdisciplinary teams across the system to better understand and act on patient feedback and experience data.
Washington says relational care is at the heart of Trinity Health's approach and "reflects its mission as a healing ministry, helping build trust through deeper connections based on each person's needs." Washington says by listening, meeting people where they are and taking a whole-person perspective, "the system works to create an experience where every patient feels heard, valued and supported throughout their care journey."
Nate Stromberg, regional director of patient experience, Trinity Health Mid-Atlantic, says that relationship-building among colleagues and between colleagues and patients is a key part of this process.
"Health equity is a huge part of this — we're treating people as individuals," he says. "It's about how we're listening to the voices" of patients.
Stromberg adds that, in a way, he's trying to engage all associates in his region in becoming patient experience experts. "This is part of the mission," he says. "We're all serving together in the spirit of the gospel."