CCH August 2017 Department Discovery: Patient and Resident Experience

The Campbell County Health August 2017 Department Discovery shines a light on the Patient and Resident Experience Department.

For those who don’t know, this team serves in various capacities that benefit patients, long-term care residents, visitors, staff and medical staff. According to Mary Barks, Director, The Beryl Institute defines the patient experience as: The sum of all interactions, shaped by an organization’s culture, that influence patient perceptions across the continuum of care.

“We believe this definition is perfect in describing ‘what we do’ for all of the people we serve at CCH—after all, we don’t just serve patients. Our goal in Patient Experience is to deliver patient-centered care through collaborative efforts at all levels of the organization,” says Mary.

CCH provides a very broad range of health care services to the Campbell County, Wyoming community, and beyond. Therefore, Patient Experience is involved with:

• training and coaching the principles of Excellence Every Day
• keeping the Standards of Excellence in the forefront of expectations
• managing the grievance and complaint process
• being change agents to improve the experience people have wherever they enter CCH
• implementing and managing the patient experience survey process, which includes communicating this data to staff, leadership and medical staff and to lead efforts to improve the patient experience through training and education.
• they are also a resource to medical staff to ensure critical initiatives are implemented for the betterment of our patients’ experience.

And they do all of this with three staff—as well as one Chaplain. One fun fact about the staff is that Mary has been with CCH for 27 years, with 23 of those years in the Patient Experience Director seat. Katie Golinvaux has been with CCH for more than 20 years with 18 of them in Patient Experience; and Chrissy Moore has been with CCH and the department for 10 years!

“Many people feel our jobs are extremely negative—receiving complaints daily—and that every day is a downer. We look at it differently—we get an opportunity to improve every time we receive feedback about care someone receives at CCH. It is an opportunity for service recovery, for process improvement, for coaching staff in communication or simply listening to a patient’s experience that leads us to do our very best to make someone’s experience better,” says Mary.

Mary says that one of the best parts of working in Patient Experience is the abundance of comradery, compassion, empathy, and laughter in the department. “Truly, we love to laugh, even if we feel like crying. We love to celebrate one another’s wins and we come alongside one another when we feel frustrated. Even though we are a small department, we are strong and supportive of one another,” says Mary.

This year, this team is excited to continue with CCH’s journey for Excellence Every Day, which includes the partnership with the Studer Group. “This has been an exciting process for nearly five years, and we look forward to what lies ahead for us” says Mary. The team also looks forward to seeing how changes to patient surveys for the Campbell County Medical Group clinics will impact patient experience scores as well as participation from patients in the clinic.

And, the biggest news in the department is that a new manager will be coming on board: Tanya Allee, who will be stepping in on September 11, as Mary takes a position with The Legacy Living and Rehabilitation Center.

A big round of applause to our Patient and Resident Experience team! Thank you for helping to keep our patients healthy and happy.

Campbell County Health affirms and supports patient's rights and responsibilities with the expectation that observance of these rights will contribute to greater satisfaction for patients, their families, their physician, and the organization. To learn more, please visit the Patient Rights section of our website.