Patient Experience Journal (Apr 2015)
Reframing the work on patient experience improvement
Abstract
In reframing the work on patient experience improvement Dr. Jocelyn Cornwell, chief executive of The Point of Care Foundation, challenges us to broaden our view on what is necessary to impact patient experience efforts. From a defined need to reduce avoidable suffering associated with health care delivery dysfunction, she suggests we extend the discussion in two ways: First, to include a concern for staff engagement, experience and well-being, and second, to position patient experience improvement as one type of quality improvement (QI) in healthcare, and urge practitioners to pay more attention to the lessons from QI in other domains. High quality, reliable patient experience is a primary goal in healthcare alongside others; too often it is treated as separate from other quality goals, deprived of the resources those goals command and taken less seriously. By broadening our view on patient experience improvement, Dr. Cornwell offers we will find not only greater engagement from all participants in healthcare, but also positive and sustained outcomes.
