Ten years ago, the Institute of Medicine recommended patient-centered care (PCC) as one of six key areas that healthcare should aim to improve in, stating that """"""""patients have expressed frustration with their inability to participat in decision making, to obtain information they need, to be heard, and to participate in systems of care that are responsive to their needs."""""""" Indeed patient- centered care ( as opposed to hospital- centered or healthcare professional- centered care) have been shown to improve patient outcomes and satisfaction, reduce health care costs, improve safety and quality of care, and reduce medical malpractice. Making sure that hospital care is patient centered, however, can be challenging. Published reports of patient stories and recent results from national surveys of patient experiences in the hospital continue to confirm the pressing need to improve in this area. The overall goal of the proposed conference is to identify and disseminate healthcare innovations and promising practices for making hospital care patient- centered. The Hospital Consumer Assessment of Health Providers and Systems Survey (HCAHPS) provides national benchmarks for hospitals in this area. Publicly reported HCAHPS data have shown small improvements nationwide with evidence of large differences in performance among hospitals. The proposed conference will bring together representatives of US hospitals of various sizes that have performed highly on HCAHPS to share information on what they believe makes their hospital a high performer, to present on specific interventions that have proved successful in their hospital units, and to describe the challenges they have met and how they overcame those. This conference will provide examples of hospital best practices and facilitate future networking among committed team leaders from various hospitals. Having different types of hospitals present their success stories would help nurture positive thinking about hospitals'ability to improve patient- centered care delivery, patient hospital experiences, and patient outcomes. To ensure meaningful exchange of information during the conference, a structured application and review process where a detailed hospital application will be reviewed by a committee of patient advocates, experts in the field, researchers, and healthcare professionals. Conference proceedings and findings will be available to the public and disseminated widely through established networks. In addition to informing hospital leaders and improvement teams in hospitals on how to improve hospital practice of patient-centered care, the proposed conference can inform the research agenda for future work in this important field.
This conference will bring together representatives of US hospitals of various sizes that excel in delivering patient centered care according to national benchmarks , to share information about what makes their hospital a high performer and provide specific examples of successful interventions .
| Aboumatar, Hanan J; Chang, Bickey H; Al Danaf, Jad et al. (2015) Promising Practices for Achieving Patient-centered Hospital Care: A National Study of High-performing US Hospitals. Med Care 53:758-67 |
