Interprofessional collaboration to improve and sustain patient experience outcomes in an ambulatory setting

Abstract

Patient experience is an important factor across diverse healthcare delivery settings. Despite enhanced attention to and advances in patient experience, many of the published initiatives focus on in-hospital care and opportunities have been identified to continue to strategically address patient experience in the ambulatory setting. This quality improvement initiative presents the development of an interprofessional approach to patient experience in a freestanding ambulatory oncology center. The objective of this initiative was to improve and sustain patient experience, as reflected in the Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (CAHPS) scores via Press Ganey. This approach consisted of redesigning a previously nurse-led patient experience team to include interprofessional providers, including physicians, physical therapists, and administrators. Interventions including specialized training in CAHPS® reports and scoring for both committee members and center staff, quarterly reporting of data to interprofessional teams by service line, and standardization of the communication of best practices to improve patient experience across the center. In addition to outlining the components of the interprofessional initiative, which may be readily translated across diverse care settings, this article demonstrates improved and sustained patient satisfaction data, as measured by 2 years of Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (CAHPS®) scores. Findings from this best practice suggest that an interprofessional approach with defined interventions can improve patient experience in the ambulatory setting, resulting in sustained, measurable improvement.