PHPEP at West Anaheim Medical Center
It all started with a challenge in an executive meeting to start a project for improving the patients` experience at West Anaheim Medical Center.
I am a General Surgeon and Hernia Specialist with more than 15 years of experience at West Anaheim Medical Center. Medicine has always been my passion in life. It has given me purpose and allowed me the opportunity to flourish in my personal life. Lately as a patient`s advocate I have had significant struggle with the direction of our health care and its little emphasis on personal care and compassion. Therefore, I embraced the challenge of creating a project to improve the patient experience in this hospital.
I knew most of the staff closely for many years and believed in their heart and commitment to the patient care and the fact that I could rely on them for success of this project. After all those are the ones that create incredible experiences for patients. But I also believed that we cannot improve the patient experience with unhappy, frustrated and at times burnout health professionals. I realized that both elements are linked to each other and feed one another. The mission was to improve the well-being of the health professional and improve the patient experience. The project was called “Patient Health Professional Experience Project” or “PHPEP”.
This project was launched in December 1 2014 at 1 East surgical floor. It started with establishing daily nursing and physician rounds, installing white boards in each room for educating the patients about their problems and daily treatment plans, installing daily ritual poster as reminder for staff of values and humane practices, and monthly meeting to inspire the staff and share experiences and ideas about the patient and health professional experiences and relationships. Although it has been a slow progress but the sparks are shining and changes in the attitude and moral among the staff are apparent. I really hopeful that these sparks are the beginning of a spectacular culture change in our workplace.
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