Connect Live @ Adventist Health | September 16, 2021
Story 41

Joyce Newmyer:

How do we talk to and with each other? How do we maybe do less telling, because communication isn't just about sharing information. It's a two-way street. How do we ask more questions? Welcome to Connect Live at Adventist Health. I'm Joyce Newmyer, Chief Culture Officer at Adventist Health, and your host for Connect Live. This week we're going to be talking about perioperative nurses, patient experience, and medicine meets mission. Perioperative means in and around the time of surgery. It's a term that usually refers to nurses who take care of patients before, during, and immediately after surgery. Twenty-one RN associates have entered into our first cohort to become perioperative specialty nurses who serve at Adventist Health. This is a new and exciting professional development for RNs currently working in the medical surgical areas who want to expand their training and experience.

Joyce Newmyer:

The perioperative nurses use a comprehensive multi-disciplinary approach to patient care. They have several three-day intensives and online training to complete the course. Thanks to Stewart Lawson, system director for clinical practice and education, our first cohort has already resulted in several graduates, and plans are in place to have two more cohorts before the end of this year. Adventist Health is proud of these perioperative nurses and those who are helping them expand their horizons. Congratulations to all of them. Today, we'll be exploring patient experience, what it means and how Adventist Health is focusing on ensuring positive and memorable patient experiences. Joining us today is Stephanie Abbott, Chief Experience Officer for Adventist Health, and Ryan Ashlock, President of Adventist Health Castle. Good afternoon to both of you. Or Ryan, I should say good morning to you since you're joining us from the time zone of the beautiful state of Hawaii.

Ryan Ashlock:

Good morning.

Stephanie Abbott:

Morning.

Joyce Newmyer:

Stephanie, welcome to you. You're brand new to Adventist Health, and we're so blessed to have you onboard. Tell us about how you became so passionate about creating positive, memorable patient experiences in healthcare.

Stephanie Abbott:

I think I'm so passionate about it because the people that I love most in the world experience healthcare. My dad, my son, my daughter, my husband. And then I think about the greatest people that I've met along my healthcare journey, my healthcare friends, that are providing that care. So I'm passionate and about it because I help create a better experience for the people that I love and my work people that I love.

Joyce Newmyer:

That's a good why. That's a good reason to be in the field that you're in. So Ryan, you are the president of one of the highest performing hospitals in patient experience, oftentimes the highest performing, Adventist Health Castle. So how do you ensure a consistent experience, every patient, every encounter at Castle?

Ryan Ashlock:

Yeah, thanks, Joyce. First, it's an honor for me to be able to represent Castle and the outstanding associates that we have here. They're the ones that deserve all the credit for the work that goes on here to drive our patient experience, and it's great to be the one that gets to share their great work. When we think about how you ensure a consistent experience, we really think about five categories here. First, it's culture. We say love matters here at Adventist Health Castle, and what that means is that we bring compassion to our healthcare delivery. It's really driven by the Aloha spirit that exists here in Hawaii, and it may sound hokey, but Joyce, you know from spending time here, it's really something that is ingrained in the people here, that we treat everyone as if they were one of our own. So that's number one, culture.

Number two, hiring the right people. You really have to make sure you're bringing those into the organization that fit the unique culture that we have. There's been several times that we've had to make difficult decisions to not hire someone because they just weren't a cultural fit. They were a great technical fit, but not a good cultural fit. Clear expectations. We have what we call “always behaviors,” something that everyone within the organization follows. We also really push that every role in the organization plays a role in the patient experience, no matter where you work. The fourth one, engagement. You must engage your associates to be able to engage your patients, and we're blessed to have been able to drive top-decile associate engagement here at Castle, which I think translates into our success on patient experience. And then the fifth one, accountability. We talk about 100 over 0, meaning 100% responsibility for driving the patient experience and zero excuses for why it's not achieved. And that's really the tough love part of what love matters means at Castle. So those are the five things we really point to, to drive a consistent patient experience here.

Joyce Newmyer:

Wow, Ryan, it's certainly been a great recipe for success. I'm very proud to represent Castle as your board chair, and I see this in action. It's a life's honor for me to be associated with this organization. Stephanie, what are some of the things that people have maybe assumed about patient experience over the years that has changed over time? What new learnings do we have today that we didn't have in the past?

Stephanie Abbott:

I think Ryan just actually said it beautifully. It's really about our associates. As healthcare has evolved over the years... Twenty years ago, it was the provider in the center, and we created the systems around the physician being in the middle. And then it turned into, "Oh, we're going to do patient-centered care, and let's put the patient in the middle." But really what it is and what it should be is the associates and our employees arm-in-arm with our patients, and then creating that system around them that supports that compassion and uniqueness of those individuals. So Ryan, you said it perfect.

Joyce Newmyer:

So Ryan, you talked about recruiting and being sure that you recruit people who are a great cultural fit, and yeah, I'm very familiar with that Adventist Health Aloha culture. It's beautiful. So let's suppose that we do hire someone and maybe they turn out to not be the right fit. How do you know if they're not fitting in culturally and then what do you do about it?

Ryan Ashlock:

You know, it's something that's pretty clear here when someone's not getting it. Because it's a very distinct and unique culture, if you're not following the practices and the behaviors that we instill in our associates here, you really feel like a fish out of water. And we've heard that at times before. And the other great thing about here at Castle is associates do a great job of self-policing those that aren't following those behaviors. So if you're not following what I'll call the Castle way, they'll pull them aside and say, "Hey, this is how we do things here. Keep that in mind as you're going about your day-to-day work." And then of course, if someone's really not getting it, it goes to that coaching process. Let's coach them up or coach them out. We go back and talk to them about our always behaviors, why it's important that we chase zero harm, why it's important we treat all of our patients with love and respect.

And if ultimately they're not getting it, then you have to coach them out of the organization. It sounds harsh, but it only takes one person to create a negative experience in the patient experience. You can come across 20 to 30 people, and let's say 29 of the 30 do a great job, that one could be the reason that you don't get that score that you want to be able to drive it. So really the expectation is love matters here 100% of the time, and it goes back to that 100 over 0 concept.

Joyce Newmyer:

I love that. I used to say that people would stick out like a sore thumb if they didn't get it, but particularly at Castle, on an island, I think fish out of water makes a lot more sense. So Stephanie, this is probably our last question here. In this pandemic, caregivers are so tired. These people are exhausted, and yet they're committed to loving and caring for people, for their communities. How do we create positive patient experiences when we're masked, when visitors are limited, maybe not even possible, when we're separated in distance? How do we maintain that personal connection that makes for great experiences?

Stephanie Abbott:

You know, you ask me that and I hear my grandmother in my head saying, "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." And I think about as this unique time that we're in, how do our care teams put themselves in the patient's shoes and try to feel what they feel? And that's that empathy piece. And then having compassion, which is the action to move into a positive direction and help that patient feel like a unique individual experiencing that illness instead of whatever their diagnosis is. So when we help take that little bit of time, and it might be just holding their hand in trying to connect with them personally, but that's what's going to make the biggest difference in the world.

Joyce Newmyer:

Beautiful. Thank you to both of you for joining us today and for sharing your passion for our patients and their families. So blessings to you both. Thanks for joining us.

Ryan Ashlock:

Thanks, Joyce.

Joyce Newmyer:

Our final story today is about how medicine meets mission. How do you bring healthcare to people in hard-to-reach areas across a sprawling rural region? At Adventist Health's Central Valley Network, the answer is nearly 40 ambulatory clinics, a mobile clinic on wheels, four hospitals, and now two medical residency programs. Dr. Joseph Maddela is one of the resident physicians in the newest family medicine residency program, which began this summer at Adventist Health Tulare. California's Central Valley is home to him and he shared that it has been his dream to give back to the people who raised him. You can read more about this story and many others at adventisthealth.org/story. Friends, thank you for connecting live, and we'll see you here next week, same day, same time. Until then, let's be a force for goo