Licensed Beds
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Along with the desire to increase patient satisfaction, CAMC leaders also called for improvements in the clinical realm. Specifically, they sought to reduce the average admission time of 45 minutes and hoped to see communication and coordination among teams on patient care units improve.
CAMC’s Service Excellence Innovation Team led the implementation of CAMC’s “Warm Welcome” initiative in January 2016. A pilot project was implemented on four units to trial a newly developed Welcome Pathway, which included scripting, new workflows and a welcome video produced by CAMC.
The five-minute video opened with a greeting by CEO David Ramsey followed by scenes featuring CAMC employees cast in roles as staff and patients. The messages presented in the short program helped patients recognize what to expect during a typical hospital stay.
The Welcome Pathway directed the admitting clinician to play the video on-demand for the patient within 12 hours of admission, a workflow change that leadership felt was necessary for the initiative to be successful.
“Rather than scheduling the video for continuous play on a designated channel, we believed it was important for staff to introduce the video and start it for the patient. We know people are overwhelmed, anxious and not feeling their best when they’re admitted to the hospital, so we didn’t want to place the burden on patients to be responsible for finding the video on TV and watching it themselves. Orientation education is our responsibility, not the patient’s,” says Ms. Miller.
Launching the video on-demand also gave CAMC the ability to keep count of viewing activity through reports generated by the SmarTigr system.
Ms. Miller further explains, “Tracking the utilization helped each of the units with accountability. We added welcome video utilization to our Top 5 board, which is part of our Performance Improvement framework. Unit managers receive data every month benchmarking their progress toward each of CAMC’s top 5 priorities for improvement. As we saw video views increasing and observed improvements in other measures tied to the welcome process, it helped us recognize that the video was making a positive impact.”
Among the clinical improvements noted1 were:
- A decrease in admission time from 45 to 15 minutes
- An improvement in admitting diagnosis education and medication education (up 24%)
- An increase in whiteboard completion (up 23%)
Starting the patient’s hospitalization on a high note is an investment in the patient satisfaction bank. -
Maricris Miller
Associate Administrator
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In addition, a patient satisfaction survey was conducted on the units pre- and post-implementation of the Warm Welcome process. While improvements were noted in every measure, significant increases were noted in responses that addressed2:
- Unit is aware that patient has arrived (up 46%)
- Staff available at bedside when patient arrives (up 45%)
The increase in patient satisfaction was also reflected in CAMC’s HCAHPS survey responses on the units in which the pilot was implemented. CAMC’s scores on Nurse Communication specifically on courtesy and respect was at top decile in 20163 Patients’ overall satisfaction with how they were welcomed to the unit were measured through a mobile rounding app and had an 81.21% top box response--scores of ‘9’ and ‘10’ on a scale of 0 (lowest) to 10 (highest).
Upon the completion of the highly successful pilot test, CAMC rolled out the Warm Welcome initiative across inpatient units throughout the four-hospital system. The welcome video quickly became and remains to this day the #1 most viewed title at CAMC.4 Staff in patient care units are also positive about the new Warm Welcome process, which saves them time and helps CAMC realize savings in staff efficiency (annualized savings of $54,1955 in 2016).
Some of the most exciting changes that have come about from CAMC’s Warm Welcome initiative, however, are not as easily captured in numbers. “Starting the patient’s hospitalization on a high note is an investment in the patient satisfaction bank,” Ms. Miller says. “We love the way the video helps patients feel an instant connection to their caregivers. It’s a wonderful thing when a doctor or nurse walks into the room and the patient says ‘I just saw you on TV. You’re a star!’”