Service Excellence Commitment Pays Off

Far left, back row: Audrey Berry, nurse manager, 5 West Cardiac Telemetry with several team members of her team.

Our team members are working hard at WellStar Kennestone Hospital to provide our patients and their families with high-quality, compassionate care in support of the WellStar mission. These consistent and hardwired efforts are reflected in improved departmental patient satisfaction scores. The recent achievements of the teams on 5 West Cardiac Telemetry and 6 West Inpatient Rehabilitation are just two examples of this fact:  

Hourly rounding: Realizing that it takes 21 days of repetitive behavior to hardwire a personal habit, the dedicated team on 5 West Cardiac Telemetry recently made a 30-day commitment to ensure that the eight behaviors of hourly rounding were being done by every team member on every patient, correctly and consistently. At the end of the 30-day period, patient satisfaction scores rose dramatically, driving the mean unit score from 84.0 to 90.4 and the percentile ranking from the 18th  to the 91st  percentile.

Seeking patient feedback: To reverse an unusual dip in the unit’s normally high patient satisfaction scores several months ago, the 6 West - Inpatient Rehabilitation Unit team began refocusing on fundamental behaviors, such as bedside rounding, and began a practice of reviewing Press Ganey scores and discussing patient discharge call comments at team meetings. They also began a practice upon admission and discharge of letting patients know they will be asked to provide feedback by completing a patient satisfaction survey. As a result of these efforts, the unit’s fourth quarter satisfaction scores were in the 99th percentile. Consistent, hardwired service excellence efforts are how we demonstrate a high-quality care experience to our patients and their families. Congratulations to these teams for their success!