Dear Friends and Colleagues in Patient Experience,
When I last wrote, I focused on the importance of enhancing the Patient Experience now more than ever with the impact of COVID on our healthcare delivery systems. What I did not mention at the time was that I have been working on the front line in a Long-Term Acute Care hospital as an interim Chief Clinical Officer. We recently opened a COVID unit to meet the never-ending demand because of community need and to assist our referral partners. Sadly, the need for more beds seems unending as well.
We often hear and see the celebrations of our Heroic staff and the “clap outs” as recovered patients leave the hospital. All of this is a great way to acknowledge the hard work of our staff members and to recognize the patient’s recovery. But what about the time the patient is hospitalized and the staff are tirelessly working to care for them? I have seen firsthand the look of exhaustion. I see the sweat on the backs and foreheads of our staff members. PPE is hot and the wearing of the N95, or a version of it, for 12 hours is hard, tiring, uncomfortable. Yet they press on. I have seen the sad look in patients’ eyes and the worried look of family members as they peer in through windows and connect on social media. Isolation, loneliness, and worry can be as debilitating as the disease.
As hospital leaders, we must find ways that comfort as well as support our staff. We need to hone in on our empathic capability. Can exceptions be met to allow for a family member to visit and say goodbye when a suffering person is dying alone with COVID? Can we ensure that staff members with direct care responsibilities get frequent breaks? Can we set up restful spaces for staff to decompress and breathe?
Now is the time to establish and maintain trust with our staff members as well as our patients and their families. What we do now will long be remembered. Trust, or lack of it, will be embedded in their hearts and minds. Once lost, Trust is hard to re-establish. Let PX academy help.
