Five years ago, Cleveland Clinic certainly wasn’t one of the highest scored hospitals in patient satisfaction surveys. In fact, its patient satisfaction scores put it in the 30th percentile of hospitals, according to CEO Toby Cosgrove. Today, he said those scores fall in the 74th percentile, which he considers pretty good, especially considering the high acuity of so many of the health system’s patients. But there’s still work to be done.
In a talk at the Medical Innovations Summit, Dr. Cosgrove explained that the effort to improve the patient experience involved all of the health system’s employees. While those efforts encompassed some big moves, such as staff training and creating an Office of Patient Experience, they also encompassed little steps that seem to be making a big difference.
Here are a few of those small steps that stood out:
- Patient greeters throughout the hospital wear red coats so patients can easily identify the people who can help them get to their destinations.
- Thousands of pieces of art are displayed throughout the clinic’s facilities. They’re managed by a professional curator who organizes them to create a healing environment and help patients navigate.
- Instead of allowing patients to opt in to MyChart, the portal through which they access their health records, they’re automatically enrolled and have the choice to opt out. That’s more than double the number of patients using the program, Cosgrove said.
- Visiting hours are no more; families and friends can visit patients whenever they want.
- Clinicians and staff members wear color-coded uniforms so patients know what to expect. “If someone wearing red comes into your room, you know they’re a vampire and they’re here to take your blood,” Cosgrove joked.
- With the help of fashion designer Diane von Furstenberg, the Clinic designed a more dignified patient gown that covers the entire body.
- The Clinic offers massage therapy and pet therapy in some departments, including oncology and pediatrics.
- There were once more than 60 different phone numbers a patient could call to make an appointment with a neurologist, Cosgrove said. Now there’s one universal number for making an appointment with any of the system’s clinicians. That’s lowered the time patients spend waiting on the phone and cut the drop-off rate.
