2017 Patient Experience Summit Recap: Deeply Meaningful Conference Focuses on “Empathy by Design”

A community of experts and learners came together at Cleveland Clinic’s eighth annual Patient Experience Summit: Empathy + Innovation to examine how the concept of design thinking can improve healthcare.

Organized along its “Empathy by Design” theme, the conference focused on topics ranging from quality and safety, high-reliability organizations, burnout and engagement to end-of-life perspectives – all in the context of a constantly changing healthcare environment.

Cleveland Clinic Chief Experience Officer Adrienne Boissy, MD, MA, a neurologist, co-chaired the summit at the Cleveland Convention Center. The program is considered the world’s largest independent conference devoted to improving the patient experience.

Here, Dr. Boissy provides a summit recap for those who attended and those considering coming next year.

What was inspirational this year?

Our first plenary speaker was Rana Awdish,* a critical care physician from Detroit who faced a life-threatening illness herself. Her talk, “In Shock – Culture Change from the Vantage Point of a Critically Ill Patient,” described some of the shocking things she actually heard as a seriously ill patient. For example, “she’s circling the drain” and “she’s trying to die on us.” Her point was that our patients are listening to us and words that we might have fallen into the habit of using should be reconsidered. As a clinician, she reflected how she was taught to conceal emotion and yet it is exactly what your patients need. Her talk was both heartbreaking and enlightening. People spoke about Dr. Awdish time after time in their reviews.

Another highlight was the session, “When Breath Becomes Air – A Conversation with Lucy Kalanithi.” Lucy was interviewed by our own Katie Neuendorf.

Dr. Kalanithi is the widow of Paul Kalanithi, who was Clinical Assistant Professor of Medicine at Stanford School of Medicine and who wrote “When Breath Becomes Air.” Despite Paul facing a life threatening illness, they decided to have a child. Lucy asked her husband if he was afraid he was going to miss all the moments in his child’s life; that it was going to hurt too much. His response was simple, “Well, I sure hope it does.” The idea is that part of living is suffering, and if we’re able to embrace that and recognize its coexistence with beautiful moments, we learn what it means to live.

Lucy also expressed her appreciation for Cleveland Clinic neurosurgeon Ed Benzel, former Chairman of Neurosurgery, who was Paul’s mentor. It was really a beautifully done session.

*Rana Awdish, MD, MS, Medical Director, Patient Care Experience, Henry Ford Health System

What was new at the summit this year?

Interactive interstitial sessions. One started with a fictional female patient who had just been diagnosed with breast cancer. Participants were challenged to imagine what she was seeing, hearing, feeling and what she was not telling anybody that she worried about the most. The exercise evolved over the course of the summit so that her complete journey was outlined on a huge poster by the end of the conference.

From that exercise we learned that even at a conference filled with patient experience professionals, there are still opportunities to build our programs around the emotions of people we serve. The fear that emerged in the exercise was significant and heavier than many of us anticipated.

What about the 2017 Empathy Amplified Award?

The Empathy Amplified Award has been given for three years to recognize those who embody empathy and relationship-centered care beyond what is expected in their role. We received 107 applications this year and for the first time the review committee selected an international winner. Dr. Menh Phanavarine from Sihanouk Hospital Center of HOPE in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, was humble and brilliant. The teaching hospital provides free, 24-hour care to poor and disadvantaged people in Cambodia.

Other powerful moments?

Our Cleveland Clinic CEO, Toby Cosgrove, lead the panel, “Continued Learning: Strategies to Reduce Burnout,” with Drs. Tait Shanafelt and Christine Sinsky.** There was this beautiful moment when Christine posed the question: What if joy in medicine was a metric of all of our performance? What would that feel like and what would we be willing to do? And that was very striking, neuron nudging, and a valid question. Why don’t we? Why don’t we expect this work to be equally meaningful and to bring joy?

The last highlight I want to mention is Michael Sardinsky, a retired chief strategy officer who now volunteers time to direct patients in one of our Cleveland Clinic lobbies and at Ronald McDonald House® of Cleveland.

He spoke about the dash – what happens between the day you are born and the day you die. He quoted Mark Twain, who pointed out that the two most important days are the day you are born and the day you understand why. His beautifully articulated story described the day he realized why he was born and how that has shaped his commitment to volunteering. He called upon all of us to live our purpose.

**Tait Shanafelt, MD, Professor of Medicine, Mayo Clinic; and Christine Sinsky, MD, FACP, VP, Professional Satisfaction, American Medical Association

What was the most interesting feedback from the summit?

One tweet sums it up: “Beyond impeccably planned summit: speakers, workshops, food, violin player, and empathy fortune cookies.”

We were recognized for attending to the experience of caregivers, our participants, in a way that they don’t see at other conferences. This means a lot given how much we appreciate every single participant.

I also heard a lot about how if compassion doesn’t work, then we might need to dial up the dosage. Caregivers and patients and colleagues all benefit from a more compassionate system. Patient experience professionals have a real role in caring for their colleagues.

How do you close this kind of meaningful and moving conference?

Sometimes I find patient experience professionals are apologetic or their colleagues don’t value them or their role in driving empathy in healthcare. It’s an awful feeling. That being said, you’re here. If you showed up, then you feel deeply passionate about this work and are part of our empathy family. If you’re going to dream bigger, you’re going to fail and we need to be okay with that. Our work will be relentless; it will require a determination that is ever-present. Make no apologies!

In light of that, my final messages were: dream bigger, get back up, and do what you were born to do.

I want to keep patient experience and the success of the summit alive, and honor the commitment of everybody who participates year after year: our 160 speakers, 120-plus external sponsors, and thousands of attendees, especially those who come back year after year.

Register now for the 2018 Patient Experience Summit, June 18-20, in Cleveland, OH.