Neighbors Helping Neighbors: goShadow and the Innovation Center Team Up for Shared Success
The IC Partnered with frontline employees and Leaders in Magee Imaging departments to help decrease “turnaround times” (the time it takes for a patient who is ordered an imaging exam to have the exam completed). It used shadowing, WMTY (of frontline employees), PCVS Jump Start, and care experience flow mapping. The following blurbs give mini-snapshots of the efforts undertaken, and how they helped catalyze changes in hospital processes.
Tool: WMTY
Who/Where: CT employees and leaders
Findings: Frontline employees in the CT department identified the same goals as their leadership (improving turnaround times) and felt strongly that they could play a role in reducing key metrics
Employees and leaders recognized the need to collaborate with teams in adjacent care areas (ED, transport, informatics) to make improvements
Tool: Care Experience Flow Mapping
Who/Where: Patient journey from the Emergency Department to CT scan / Patient journey from the Emergency Department to OB Ultrasound
Findings: Provided a visual representation of the complex process of moving a patient from the emergency department to CT or OBUS. The flow maps, paired with data from the imaging departments, validated employees’ anecdotal accounts of the complex workflow and enabled leadership to pinpoint what could be improved, who should be involved, and how to prioritize action items.
Tool: PCVS Jump Start
Who/Where: CT and ED employees
Findings: Created a clear path for frontline employees to play a part in department and system-level goals. Engaged and empowered employees by helping them create teams, bringing them into the problem-solving process and making use of everyone’s skills and contributions.
goShadow Partnered with OB Ultrasound and Breast Imaging to address patient comfort in what is often an uncomfortable and stressful experience for patients. It used shadowing and WMTY (of patients).
Below are a few examples of the tools the teams used, where, and what they found.
Tool: Shadowing
Who/Where: OB Ultrasound and Breast Imaging
Findings:
• Overall care in both departments was excellent
• Patient experienced multiple wait times during a single appointment and waits could be lengthy – negatively affected patients’ experiences
• Staff were eager to find ways to improve the patient experience (specifically, wanted to find ways to cut down on wait times and optimize the patient flow)
• Patients want to feel safe and comfortable, and feel shorter wait times would reduce worry and anxiety
• Identified “reducing wait times” as a goal and recognized the need to work with ED team to improve this
What happens when neighbors help neighbors?
The IC and gS used their person-centered approaches to:
• Provide the human-factor/stories of real people that help drive change. The WMTY and shadowing results connected stories of real people and real experiences to the data and workflows mapped out by the IC.
• Create a greater drive for all involved parties to create change.
• llluminate the commonalities between what patients want and what caregivers want.
• Re-establish empathy and compassion by showing employees their hard work and efforts are making a difference in what patients are experiencing.
• Combat employee burnout by creating person-centered links between the work being done and the patients being served.
• Bring neighbors together to understand the commonalities among teams, to break down silos and to unite departments inside Magee to function as one streamlined care team.