I had the pleasure of making a presentation at a leadership meeting at Northwestern Medicine today. Afterwards, while sitting through some other business sessions of the team, I saw this simple graphic representation. It is emblematic of the types of changes that can occur when patients and families help set a health system's priorities. Northwestern has convened a patient-family advisory council and was discussing with them the various metrics the hospital uses to portray progress on several clinical fronts. The PFAC members made a persuasive case that the evaluative framework employed by the health system, and the corresponding set of metrics to measure progress along that framework, had a number of gaps. What evolved was the new framework shown above. Over the next couple of years, NW will design and add metrics to their corporate scoreboard to fill in the gaps noted by the PFAC.
This is a fine example of the kind of partnership that can develop between a health care system and the people it serves.
3 comments:
Laudable. Just one suggestion about language - just as doctors have to learn to speak 'patient language', so do other professionals. "Did you safely transition me to the next level of care?" is not phraseology that would be used or understood by a lot of patients. Simplify, simplify, simplify.
nonlocal MD
Thank you for speaking with our management and medical leadership group! It was a great, affirming, inspring talk and reminded us all that we are here to deliver great care, reliably and transparently, and with caring for every patient and every staff member. Your soccer girls - and all the rest of us - are incredibly lucky to have your leadership.
I applaud all those who attended this seminar. Round of applause for Paul Levy, for all who aspire to offer patient centered care.
Please pause for a moment to take this in, you are not the norm, we, the patients, are grateful that you care.
Of course these are rocky times. We don't expect perfection. That you gather, take the time to talk about how to reconcile the realities of business while putting my best interests in the mix, well, that takes my breath away. And I thank you.
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