OR Excellence Award Winner

When a breast cancer patient recently came into the Bayfront Health Spring Hill campus surgical services department, a team member who had survived breast cancer took special note. She wanted to talk to the patient to see if she could answer any questions about her personal experience, something that could help allay the patient’s fears.

“She had been there and wanted to talk to the patient one-on-one, tell her that she knew what the patient was going through and ask if there was any way she could help,” says Susan Byrd, MBA, RN, director of surgical services at Bayfront Health Spring Hill (Fla.). “We try to go in and touch that person, tell them what we’ve experienced and how we overcame some of the challenges. Our nurses are just being themselves, and that’s what makes the connection.”

It’s that unscripted approach — encouraging staff members to be themselves and offer that extra personal touch — that propelled Bayfront Health Spring Hill to win the 2018 OR Excellence Award for Patient Satisfaction.

Ms. Byrd knows a lot of people who love scripting — having staff members saying the same things to patients over and over — and think if the message is continuously the same, you get better results. But that’s not what Ms. Byrd believes.

“I think patients get more of an active, engaged experience if the staff are allowed to be themselves,” says Ms. Byrd. “Patients know when we’re being scripted. My experience has been you get so much more patient satisfaction if you just be yourself while doing your job.”

The experienced staff does it over and over with patients. They never get tired or annoyed and each member of the team looks forward to the individual interactions with the patients, opportunities where the staff members can transfer their knowledge to the patients, according to Ms. Byrd.

Right from the onset

That engagement begins right from the start. The OR nurses go into pre-op and see the patients to make sure everything is ready to go before surgery and that there aren’t going to be any delays.

They also ask the patients about any anxiety they may be experiencing and if there is anything special that they can do to help alleviate that anxiety. “Sometimes we’ll tell them they can bring their headphones in and use them in that area,” says Ms. Byrd. “Anything that is going to make their experience better.”

Walking the walk

As the director, Ms. Byrd doesn’t just talk the talk, she walks the walk just like her staff members.

She does rounds, sees every admitted patient herself and follows up to determine if patients have any concerns about their experience.

“We know we’re not perfect, but getting input from the patients will help us makes strides toward being perfect,” says Ms. Byrd. “It’s just to let them know that we’re looking to see if there are any improvements we can make.”

That’s not all. Ms. Byrd gives her personal cell phone number to every patient in case there are concerns. One woman who had reservations about having her surgery done at the facility called the cell phone every day for a week. The patient and Ms. Byrd bonded and still text each other to this day.

“Just me giving them my phone number tells them I’m secure and confident in the treatment that they’re going to get,” says Ms. Byrd. “But if something should go wrong and you don’t get that treatment, then you have my number and you can call me 24/7. I don’t give them my office number because I’m not there 24/7.”

A surprise in the discharge packet

But being themselves isn’t the only thing they do at BHSH. They also like to offer a little personalized surprise to patients in their discharge packets.

The facility had been sending thank-you cards to patients, but they were somewhat impersonal. About 6 months ago, Ms. Byrd decided to change that. Staff place a thank-you card in the front jacket of each patient’s surgical chart. Each team member who interacts with that patient signs the card, noting her name, title and adding a personal handwritten note to express their gratitude for letting the staff serve them. Everyone from nurses, physicians, tech staff, the processing team and environmental team members sign the card.

The thing is, the patients don’t know that they’re getting a personalized thank-you note that could have as many as 20 signatures on it.

“They think it’s awesome,” says Ms. Byrd. “And because it’s a surprise, it perks them up. We don’t tell them we’re doing it. That would ruin it.”

The team at BHSH is always being challenged to find new methods of excelling and enhancing the patient experience. They treat every patient like they want to be treated: with respect, compassion and empathy.

For Ms. Byrd, who has been at BHSH for about a year and a half, the goal is to get everyone on the staff engaged with the patients and to be seen as a high reliability organization.

“We strive to do the right thing every time, all the time, without exception,” she says. “It’s the whole dynamics of knowing what we’re supposed to do and doing it in a way that makes the patients, physicians and staff all feel like they’re part of the team and not just some outsider watching the game.” OSM