NSW Health WSLHD Safety & Quality Account 2020-21

Improving the patient carer experience

Patient Experience Week 26-29 April 2022

Patient Experience Week is an annual global event to celebrate healthcare staff impacting patient experience every day. The Patient and Carer Experience Team liaised with facilities and services across WSLHD to recognise and promote patient experience. Patient Experience Week is a chance to recognise and thank staff for their continuous work improving patient experience and to provide the opportunity for the organisation to celebrate achievements and re-energise improvement efforts in this space. The theme for this year was The Power of Storytelling. In healthcare, sharing stories is a useful tool to engage people in quality improvement work through listening and learning from another person’s experience to shape, strengthen and challenge the way in which we deliver care in WSLHD. During the week many patients shared their stories and experience such as Lauren at Auburn who said, “You explained my issues to me, acknowledged my excruciating pain and told me the how, what and why in a way that I understood and felt genuinely cared about.” Activities The Patient Experience Team organised a range of activities to engage both staff and patients across the district, such as: District and facility executives were invited to join Clinical Governance to participate in ward rounds to meet and speak with several patients across a range of clinical areas including maternity, surgical, dialysis, cardiology, gastroenterology, Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, aged care, paediatrics and palliative care. Overall, the Patient Experience team visited patients and staff in 26 wards across Westmead, Auburn, Blacktown and Mount Druitt hospitals. During these rounds, the staff asked patients to share their stories with the aim of listening, learning and promoting the human experience. Patients were gifted themed tote bags to take home with them that included mindfulness activities and personal care packs. The Patient Experience team set up information stalls in the entrance foyers of Westmead, Auburn and Blacktown hospitals to raise awareness. Patients, carers and staff were invited to nominate a staff member to celebrate the work they have done to improve patient experience and enjoyed the company of the Nepean Therapy Dogs to launch the recommencement of the service in Westmead Hospital. Representatives from Mental Health Services joined the stalls to raise awareness of the services offered to staff and consumers in WSLHD.

Above from left: Jenelle Matic, General Manager Westmead Hospital, Two consumers, Deanna Aplitt, Deputy General Manager Westmead Hospital

REACH Recognise, Engage, Act, Call, Help is on its way (REACH) is a system that supports patients, family members and carers to escalate concerns about changes to a patient’s condition. The system encourages patients, carers and family to speak up if something doesn’t seem right and they feel the patient is becoming more unwell. This empowers people to become more involved in their own care and to speak up for safety. During the COVID-19 pandemic, visitors were not able to enter the facilities and so WSLHD published a landline number that could be accessed by family from outside of the hospital in addition to the internal number accessible by patients. WSLHD facilities have strongly promoted the program to patients and families to partner with them in care and raise clinical concerns. As a result of this promotion, there was a 27% increase in utilisation of REACH between 2020-2021 and 2021-2022. Patient Experience Coordinators (PECs) Patient Experience Coordinators work across all WSLHD Emergency Departments (EDs) during high-volume times of 11:30am and 10pm. PECs use the GoShare platform to send relevant information about the ED journey to patients in their preferred language. During the time when visitor access was limited, the PECs changed their models of care to provide additional support for patients to contact their family via video chat and to help organise pick-ups upon discharge. The PECs work alongside clinical and administration staff to support patients through triage. The PECs played a vital role in ensuring patients knew where they needed to go and were provided adequate seating, shade, water during changing COVID-19 triage models and were an asset to the organisation in providing a positive experience for patients during a particularly challenging time.

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