Transcription:
What to Expect During a Hospital Stay: Hotel vs. Hospital

Prakash Chandran (Host):  Staying at a hospital has changed over time. And despite their obvious differences, hotel and hospital stays share many of the same features. So, what exactly has changed and what can you expect during your hospital stay? We’re going to talk about it today with Elizabeth Upham, the Director of Patient Experience at Capital Health System. This is Capital Health Headlines, the podcast from Capital Health. I’m Prakash Chandran. So, Elizabeth, how exactly has a hospital stay evolved over time and in what ways is it similar to a hotel stay?

Elizabeth Upham, MS, CPXP (Guest):  It’s really a fairly new concept say in the last eight to ten years nationally that all healthcare systems really are focusing on repeat business. And that really comes down to high quality care, and the experience. So, the next logical leap was looking at the hospitality industry, how hotels and hospitals are compared with one another. And there are some similarities; overnight stays, room service, and cleanliness. But there are major differences. One wouldn’t want to have surgery in a hotel and one certainly wouldn’t want to take a relaxing getaway at a hospital. But the industry hospitality, it offers themes or practices tips that we in healthcare can look at for improvements in our service and how we help our patients heal.

Host:  You know I’m somewhat familiar with this because just six months ago, we gave birth to a beautiful baby girl and I remember the hospital stay after the birth itself felt very similar to a hotel stay and in fact, in preparation, they were telling us some of the things that we should pack and what we should expect. So, I’m curious as to what your thoughts are around how people can get prepared for their hospital stay.

Elizabeth:  Yes, we often make recommendations for people and we are available to talk to people prior to them arriving to help them plan for a successful hospital stay. And I think it’s something that hospitals and hotels have in similar. We both industries, we want you to feel cared for, recognized, safe, and communicated with. So, I encourage first of all, leaving expensive things at home. When you come to a hospital, it’s not the time to bring jewelry or things like that. I highly recommend even though we provide, it’s always good to have pen and paper handy. It’s a time where you get new information. It’s a time where you want to write down questions, people’s names. There are going to be a lot of things coming at you. You may need your reading glasses. There are educational videos on TV. We want you to be comfortable and be able to learn and interact with us.

You are part of the team taking care of yourself when you are a patient at the hospital. So, we want you to bring things that will help you to be successful and we want to minimize the opportunity for you to lose anything that may be valuable.

Host:  Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. But in addition to the pen and paper, is there anything else that you recommend that people bring with them such as toiletries, or anything like that, that might make their stay more comfortable?

Elizabeth:  Well most hospitals provide toiletries, gowns, and footwear but that said, there’s nothing better than your own. I know when I go to a hotel, I often bring my own things even though the hotels offer those plush bathrobes. So, we encourage if you have a favorite nightgown, slippers, your own favorite toiletries, please feel free to bring them. I think anything that would make you feel comfortable say a pillowcase, or a blanket. Again, we have amenities that we provide here but anything that would make you feel more comfortable. We are looking for you to feel as comfortable and as stress free as possible.

Host:  So, let’s talk about the staff. What kind of staff can a patient expect to encounter during their hospital stay?

Elizabeth:  Well it’s been said that in an average patient stay that the patients will see quite a high number of different people. And we’re all here wearing badges that identify our first name and what we do. And everyone is trained to not only share their name but why they are in the room doing what they are doing. Conversation has increased over the years. I think that’s a big change in how hospital stays are different. We really view the patient and the designated caregiver as part of the team. So, folks will be able to help patients by talking through, answering questions, allaying any fears and it’s nurses, it’s nurse’s aides or techs, it’s physicians, it may be your primary care physician, a specialty physician. We also have a wonderful amenity service of in house hospital physicians. They are called hospitalists. And they are in the footprint of the hospital. They are to care for patients 24/7 and they link with the patient’s primary care and specialists so that there’s always a doctor at the fingertips.

Teaching hospitals have residents, wonderful students, learning how to become physicians, nurse practitioners, social workers, care managers. We have wonderful professional allied services staff, respiratory, pharmacy, we have housekeeping, dietary, volunteers, patient experience people. There are a number of people that engage with the patient for both clinical care but also diversionary destressing kind of activities to make the stay better.

Host:  Yeah, that really sounds wonderful. And what a comprehensive list of people that you have available to you during your stay. I really like that. Let’s talk about the discharge. I’m curious as to after they have this wonderful stay and they get to interact with so many great people as they get care; what can they expect as they prepare for discharge?

Elizabeth:  Well we like to say discharge starts the day of admission and I guess that’s a little different from a hotel. A hotel would like you to stay forever. We in healthcare, we’d like to get you well and home so you can enjoy your life. And so, we’re asking for things like that more than ever, not only your aches and pains but we’re asking for your goals and what’s coming up in your life and what are you afraid of possibly missing or want to ensure that you are well for and it starts off with a board in every room. And it has the care plan for the day, the goal for the day, the estimated date of discharge which we put on as soon as folks are admitted. And if it changes throughout the stay, and it often does; then that’s why it’s an erasable board and we erase it and put a new day.

Because we want people to be focused on when everything is ready to go that they are able to leave and go home and be successful at home. And part of that is discharge instructions, care plans, planning for the next step, perhaps they have to go to some sort of rehabilitation, activities of daily living facility before they go to their home. Maybe it’s a different type of environment. But we’re working with patients and their caregivers to figure out the best next healthy step with a thorough understanding of their medications and the critical piece is the follow up appointments. So, many people are so glad to get out, they forget they have got these essential follow up appointments to keep the healing going.

We end it with discharge phone calls where we call a lot of our patients to ensure that they are following up and mending at home. We would like people to get well and go home and continue to improve.

Host:  Yeah, I really love that especially on the board, setting the intention and the goal for the day. I think people, and there’s a stigma, people are scared when they go to the hospital and what I love about what you are saying is that it doesn’t need to be that way. You have this hotel like experience where you have a lot of staff that cares about you, they want to get you home as quick as possible, but they also want to make sure that your stay is really as enjoyable as possible and to really take care of you while you are there. So, I really commend you and your staff for really having that foresight especially modelling the hospitality industry and bringing it to the hospital. You know just in wrapping up here, I’m just curious about some of the programs in place at Capital Health to promote patient satisfaction and staff recognition. So, maybe talk a little bit about that.

Elizabeth:  Well we start every day with interdisciplinary rounds and a safety huddle because an excellent patient experience is when our patients and their families feel safe, feel they’ve received high quality care and they’ve received ample communication. So, those are the bells and whistles of an excellent patient experience stay. So, we start with interdisciplinary rounds, rounding with the patient, many at the bedside, working on our discharges, working on a safety call and we offer a whole host of amenities for patients who know they are staying for another couple of days. Things like pet therapy, mobile art carts that come to the bedside so people can work on arts and crafts and things. We have salon services at the bedside for patients who are medically cleared, maybe a little hair shampoo or nail filing might make them feel better.

So, we really work to get the care early in the day establish the goals for the day, who can go home and making all of those who are staying comfortable and receiving everything that they should.

Host:  I imagine that people listening to this just really weren’t aware of everything that you and your staff go through to ensure that they have a good stay at Capital Health. Just as a final note, is there anything that you wish that more patients knew before they came to stay with you at a hospital?

Elizabeth:  I think I wish they knew that they should tell us how they are feeling. People get very quiet. They should let us know they are nervous, and we can help manage their expectations. We have lots of different recognition programs that you were asking about. Cards on bedside try tables, many get a survey once they go home. There’s ways to write to the patient experience department. We love to get positive feedback even if you can’t remember somebody’s name; we can figure out and we share that with our staff in a variety of public venues in terms of a patient said this nurse did blah, blah, blah. We don’t give out any patient information, that’s protected. But we certainly share when our staff has provided extraordinary care and that really helps buoy the staff and helps them learn what our patients need and want from us. So, I would say come in and ask questions. Let people know that you are feeling nervous and we will work with you to help navigate your care plan.

Host:  Yeah, that’s really great advice and just one thing that I was thinking about as we were talking was you typically go to the hospital to get something fixed or to deliver a baby, but your thoughts around the hospital experience really come down to the staff and everything that you’re talking about like what was your stay like, where people proactive in making sure that you had a good experience and part of that is as a patient you need to be proactive and sharing as you said how you are feeling and what you’d like your stay to be like so you can do the best job possible, wouldn’t you say?

Elizabeth:  Absolutely. Patients are part of the care team. We need them when they are patients in the bed, working with us to help make their care plans, we need them when they are discharged. We maintain two patient family advisory councils that are one at each hospital and we meet monthly and they work on projects and they secret shop and they go around and observe and make improvements and share stories all in the spirit of improving for the next patient because Capital Health is a continuously improving organization and we really just want to take care of everyone from the moment a baby is born all the way through the life and the family and the skinned knees and the well appointments, the sick appointments, all the way through to the end of life with palliative care.

Host:  Well Elizabeth, I think that’s a perfect place to end. Thank you so much for educating us today. that’s Elizabeth Upham, the Director of Patient Experience at Capital Health System. Thanks for checking out this episode of Capital Health Headlines. For referral to a board-certified physician please call Capital Health Medical Center at 609-394-6000 or visit us at www.capitalhealth.org. If you found this podcast helpful, please share it on your social channels and be sure to check out the entire podcast library for topics of interest to you. Thanks and we’ll talk next time.