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Berkshire
Eagle
BMC aims to be more
caring
Since 2003, BMC has been working with Planetree, a nonprofit institution dedicated to improving the patient experience in hospitals by treating both the mind and body, blending such practices as therapeutic massage with conventional medicine. Helen Downey, a registered nurse and BMC's chief operating officer, said the hospital had been viewed by the community as a large, technical and busy place that was "in many ways colder and less friendly than some of the smaller hospitals." With the feeling that BMC was less personal and more institutional, she said, it lost patients to other institutions. "Being a nurse, and in the lead position, it was important for me to find a way to change that environment and make it more comfortable, more visitor-friendly, and just a softer, more homelike environment," she said. BMC has been at work incorporating the Planetree principles for two years and says it is starting to see the results in its patient surveys. Every employee has gone on a retreat to discuss improving the patient experience. That has yielded seemingly simple suggestions, such as encouraging the housekeeping staff to smile more, and has led to more dramatic changes like redesigning the telemetry unit -- where cardiac patients are monitored -- to spread out the nurses' station and create a quieter environment. Susan Frampton, the president of Planetree, said the organization was founded in 1978 by a patient who "wanted to make the patient's experience in the hospital much more personalized, much more humanized, and a lot more open in terms of respecting a patient as a partner in their care and making sure they have access to the information that they need to be an informed participant." Planetree now has about 100 members across the country, ranging from a very large hospital like New York Presbyterian in New York to small, rural hospitals. 'Patient-centered emphasis' Dr. Mark Pettus, BMC's chief of staff, said Planetree is adding a "patient-centered emphasis" that extends beyond the specifics of medical treatment. Changing lighting and the color of the walls, and increasing privacy all make a fundamental difference in how the patient feels while in the hospital. "I think it also awakens and heightens the awareness of the importance of the interpersonal dimensions in the encounter" between doctor and patient, he said. "Many things that are routine for us are indelible in the eyes and minds of those we treat. So this is a philosophy that sort of wakens us to that reality and, hopefully, sensitizes us to it in ways to be more effective in what we do." Patricia Eddy, a registered nurse and director of customer service at BMC, said the results are beginning to show up in patient surveys. She expects them to become more apparent over the next three years as the Planetree culture further takes hold. Most important, she said, is understanding what patients want while in the hospital. "They want to be recognized as individuals. They don't want to be known as the gallbladder in Room 306. They want to be Mrs. Jones and have staff come in and recognize that Mrs. Jones has needs that need to be addressed," Eddy said. Hospitals statewide are beginning to embrace an initiative by the Massachusetts Hospital Association called "Patients First" that is an effort to improve quality and patient satisfaction. The MHA, a hospital trade organization, is pledging to give patients more information on the care they receive, including releasing data on how well or poorly hospitals do in treating certain conditions. The MHA is simultaneously working "to create a supportive environment for the health care work force," said Paul Wingle, the association's spokesman. It plans to ban mandatory overtime for nurses and others, unless required by an emergency, and will do "a major investigation into how fatigue affects the quality of work." The participating hospitals also will give the public information on staffing levels, revealing how many people are working per shift on each unit, and will conduct a patient satisfaction survey. In Berkshire County, Fairview Hospital in Great Barrington and North Adams Regional Hospital have signed on to the Patients First plan, and BMC is expected to join them shortly. "We have direction from our board to take a back seat to no one on patient safety and quality, so we have had this direction for some time," Wingle said. He expects that almost every hospital in the state will join Patients First. "Hospitals can't be -- and don't want to be -- naysayers in this movement." Nurses' group critical The MHA initiative comes as the Massachusetts Nurses Association is continuing its push in the Legislature for a law that would require a mandatory minimum level of registered nurse staffing. Its program, which would require hospitals to have a preset number of RNs on duty per patient, has been opposed by hospitals for fear that such a requirement would drain their coffers without leading to any improvements in care. David Schildmeier, a spokesman for the nurses' association, equated the MHA's Patients First initiative to a tobacco company advertising all the steps it is doing to curb teen smoking -- it makes for good publicity, but doesn't change the fact that the company is still selling cigarettes that cause cancer. "It's a cynical [public relations] ploy to try to convince the public that industry is doing something so that a law isn't passed that forces them to do something they should be doing," he said.
Jack Dew can be reached at jdew@berkshireeagle.com or at (413)
496-6241. |
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