Building Relationships Between Healthcare and Patients

Kristen Silberstein, Vice President of Patient Engagement and Chief Experience Officer at Holy Name Medical Center, talks with Steve Adubato about ways healthcare facilities are developing relationships with the individuals as well as the communities they serve.

#1917 11/4/2016

 

 

 

 

Excerpt:

"We're pleased to welcome Kristen Silberstein, vice president of patient engagement and chief experience officer at Holy Name Medical Center. Good to see you. Nice to see you. Thank you for having me. Break this down for us. Vice president of patient engagement, what does that mean? Well, can I take the experience piece first? Yeah do that one first! It's easier to explain to folks. Yeah sure. Cause that's the piece that they, more people relate to, and in my mind, the experience is what happens to a patient when they enter our walls. So how does the front desk greet you? Were you able to find your way? Did the nurse communicate with you? That all builds to the patient experience. So what I've been brought on board for is to look at the non clinical interactions that our staff are having with patients, and their family members, and making sure that those non clinical interactions rival the wonderful clinical experience that the patients are enjoying. Why is that so important? That's important because that's really what drives patient satisfaction. So the overall experience that a patient has is what's going to determine how satisfied they were with the care they received that fades into engagement. So why the experience is so important is that a satisfied patient, what we're hoping to do is turn that into a loyal patient, and that's really where the engagement piece comes in. The engagement piece, in my mind, is building on the relationship we establish when the patient was in our hospital. So... Give me an example of engaging them. For example, a patient leaves Holy Name, we're able to push out information to them, to help them manage their disease. Could you also check up on them to see how they're doing? Absolutely. Engage, connect? Connect with them. And in, you know, our ideal world, connect with people who don't need care right now. So prospective patients, so we're reaching out into the communities to engage those folks, to get them thinking about Holy Name before they need care. In so many ways, this is about relationship building? Absolutely. So healthcare is really undergoing an important paradigm shift. We are shifting from a procedure based, payer based relationship... Transactional too? Very transactional, to a more patient consumer relationship based model. Is that hard for, I mean you're articulating, you're coming into Holy Name, but for others who are so connected to, dare I call it the fee for service model, do you think it's more challenging for some? It's challenging for some. Change is hard for everybody. It sure is. Right? And so especially for those of us who have been in healthcare for many many years, it is an industry undergoing unprecedented change, especially with the advent of the Affordable Care Act..."