Strategic Plan Update: Creating a Five-Star Patient Experience

Dear Colleagues,

When people seek medical care, they are likely to be anxious about their conditions, diagnoses and treatment. That is one reason why patient- and family-centered care is such an important strategic priority. We want all patients' experiences to be consistently positive at every stage of their visit across the system, including at each of our six hospitals, at our physicians' offices, in our ambulatory settings and with our home care providers.

We must work together to create a culture that always elicits a five-star experience for each patient. To that end, we are providing Language of Caring training, so we can learn how to incorporate important patient communication skills into our workday. 

The Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services recently began rating hospitals across the nation with a star system so that consumers can more easily compare them in 11 quality measures. Johns Hopkins hospitals earned between two and four stars out of five for the year ending July 2014, and we have already begun to make improvements in patient experience.

We are sharing our performance with consumers and adult patients through the newly created Johns Hopkins Medicine Patient Safety and Quality website. The site provides relevant data for our five adult hospitals on patient experience, infection rates, hand hygiene, hospital readmissions and the evidence-based processes of care called core measures. The data reported on this site will help guide our daily patient interactions and efforts to enhance patient care.

We are also focusing on helpful ways to keep our patients from being readmitted to the hospital or returning to the Emergency Department, and to provide a smooth transition to home care. Some of our progress in these areas includes:

• Providing patients with tablet computers that have information on what to expect at the hospital —including preparing for various surgical procedures or hospitalization—to supplement our traditional patient education materials. Tablet education has been rolled out across most of the health system in selected departments.
• Supporting patients' transition from the hospital to home with bedside delivery of discharge prescriptions and a free community social work program managed by Johns Hopkins Home Care Group. The program supports discharged patients with housing, transportation, food and other issues that could potentially affect their ability to manage on their own.
• Opening an After-Care Clinic in the Johns Hopkins Outpatient Center. The clinic operates three evenings a week and is helping discharged patients who need prompt follow-up care and services, such as diabetes care, medication and lifestyle management, and wound care. 

There is so much we are already doing to ensure patient- and family-centered care. Let us all challenge ourselves to think about how we can continue to improve. Thank you for all you do.

Sincerely,

Paul B. Rothman, M.D.
Dean of the Medical Faculty
CEO, Johns Hopkins Medicine

Ronald R. Peterson
President
The Johns Hopkins Hospital and Health System
EVP, Johns Hopkins Medicine