Setting the Foundation for a Positive Patient Experience (Podcast)

Nurses can have a substantial effect on patient satisfaction. Providing a positive experience for patients and their families often begins with communication.

“Just think about how you want to be communicated to no matter where you are, whether you’re waiting for your loved one post-surgery or whether it’s at a restaurant or business,” says Kelli Saucerman-Howard, DNP, RN, Chief Nursing Officer at Cleveland Clinic Akron General. “How you are communicated to about what’s happening sets the foundation for your experience.”

In this episode of Cleveland Clinic’s Nurse Essentials podcast, Saucerman-Howard provides insight on how nurses can shape the patient experience. She discusses:

• How a nurse’s interactions with family members help build rapport with patients
• The importance of authentically listening to patients and meeting them where they are
• Ways to make a patient feel heard and cared for when their emotions are escalated
• How to maintain empathy and compassion with a difficult patient or during a challenging shift
• Advice for new nurses, tenured nurses and leaders on providing a positive patient experience

Click the podcast player above to listen to the episode now, or read on for a short, edited excerpt. Check out more Nurse Essentials episodes at my.clevelandclinic.org/podcasts/nurse-essentials or wherever you get your podcasts.

Podcast excerpt

Podcast host Carol Pehotsky, DNP, RN, NEA-BC: What sort of advice would you have for a [new nurse]?

Saucerman-Howard: I think the best piece of advice I can give to our newer colleagues is – not to sound cliché – but hourly rounding and bedside shift report. And let me tell you the why behind that.

So, as a newer nurse, I can remember a lot of times the person you're receiving hand-off from may have been someone who's been in nursing for a while. And if that's the case, now you're doing an exam and a quick look at IVs and tubes and wounds, etc., with someone else who has maybe had some experience. Even if they're another new nurse like yourself, you can still have that dialogue of, "Did it look like this earlier?" That kind of thing.

There is so much benefit to bedside shift report just from that nurse-to-nurse interaction. And now, let's bring the picture of the patient who's right there. Now the patient can ask questions. And they can get some of their answers. They can talk about the plan of care right there. And that makes that really important connection with the patient and/or perhaps there's family there, as well.

Then, hourly rounding. Hourly rounding is one of those things that as you get into the routine to do that it’s more than just going by a patient's room and saying, "Hey, are you doing OK?" It's being able to go in, and a lot of nurses feel like it's going to take them longer to do that. But in reality, the research really shows it reduced the number of call lights, because you're in there and you're saying, "What proactively can I do for you?" and "Can we go ahead and use the restroom?" Those kinds of things.

But then you get to communicate with your patient, and you get to hear more about what's happening with them – create a little bit more of a bond, and then do some education at the same time.

So I think incorporate those skills early on. The sooner you incorporate them into your practice, the easier that is as you transition to independent practice.