CONTACT:  Susan Hall

214.820.1817

susanh@baylorhealth.edu

(GRAPEVINE, TEXAS – Nov. 26, 2008) – Baylor Regional Medical Center at Grapevine earned a National Press Ganey 2008 Success Story Award for its outstanding improvement in patient satisfaction scores. A second honor, Compass Award, also was given to Baylor Grapevine emergency department to acknowledge them as among the top in patient satisfaction improvements.

Baylor Grapevine’s emergency department is one of only 6 facilities to receive this Success Story award.  This award is given to a select number of hospitals for having the most innovative, creative and unique programs for improvement and patient/employee/physician satisfaction among our peers across the country.  Both awards were given the Baylor Grapevine team on Tuesday, Nov. 18 at the Press Ganey National Client Conference.

Kris Powell, R.N., BSN, administrative director of Baylor Grapevine emergency department (ED), and Ron Jensen, D.O., ED medical director, worked as a team throughout the patient satisfaction process.

After months of low patient satisfaction scores, the hospital began making changes in July 2006.  “Problems with various processes resulted in delays in patients flow, as well as patients not being informed of their ED progress kept patient satisfaction scores low,” said Powell.  “In addition, the ED was not large enough to manage all the patients.” 

Change began gradually with monthly reviews of patient satisfaction scores during meetings between nursing and physician staff. Staff worked to reduce absenteeism and develop new patient satisfaction strategies.

In May 2007, a major innovative service and efficiency improvement project “Push to Full,” gave the ED the needed momentum in achieving improved patient satisfaction. “People come to an emergency department to see a doctor quickly,” said Powell.  “The Push to Full project was designed to increase the urgency for moving patients from the waiting room to treatment rooms, performing a quick registration and a timely medical screening exam by the doctor.”

Eight weeks after the project launched, the ED saw a 40 percent reduction in door-to-doctor time. In addition to dramatically improving patient satisfaction scores, the ED’s “Left Without Treatment” (LWOT) rate plummeted from an average of 5.4 percent to a low of .5% in the last few months.  The national LWOT target is 2 percent.

Along with the Push to Full project, the ED staff implemented other patient communication satisfiers such as hourly rounding to update patients on status of tests.  A huge satisfier, though, were the post-discharge phone calls.  Not only is this a patient pleaser, but also a quality of care intervention because the staff can redirect a patient to his or her own physician, or urge a return to the ED if not getter better.  A patient commented on the Press Ganey survey, “Wow! Not only did Dr. Jensen give me his number to call if I had any questions – he called me a day later to keep me updated on my son’s blood work and check on how my son was doing.”

The November 2007 completion of the $9.2 million ED expansion and renovation put the capped off improvement efforts since this alleviated much of the department’s capacity issues. Today, emergency department’s patient satisfaction is regularly within 95 percentile range.

Baylor Regional Medical Center at Grapevine is a 233-bed, full-service, fully-accredited not-for-profit hospital, serving residents in more than 20 cities throughout the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex. The hospital offers advanced medical care for brain and spine conditions, cardiovascular care, intensive care, diagnostic imaging, women’s services, neonatal intensive care, sleep disorders and emergency care.  Doug Lawson serves as president.

For fiscal year 2007, the faith-based Baylor Health Care System reported $390 million* in community benefit, which includes providing care for charity patients and patients enrolled in government programs such as Medicare and Medicaid, as well as the un-reimbursed cost of medical education, research and community programs.  

About Press Ganey

For more than twenty years, Press Ganey Associates, Inc. has been committed to providing insight that allows health care organizations to improve the quality of care they provide and their financial performance. The company offers the largest comparative customer feedback databases, actionable data, industry-leading research, solution resources, and unparalleled customer service. Press Ganey currently partners with more than 7,000 health care facilities—including over 40 percent of U.S. hospitals—to measure and improve the quality of their care and their bottom line.