Fostering Hospital Practices that Drive Patient Loyalty – Emilia Brad

Peggy Kurusz and Mary Ellen Griffin of Ascension Health, the nation’s largest Catholic nonprofit health system, discussed how NPS is used by their organization to focus attention on the patient experience. Specifically, the presentation described how St. Joseph Hospital, one of the top performing member hospitals, uses the Adaptive Design technique to drive process improvements.

The challenge - increase the time nurses spend with patients. Ascension Health found that on average, only 20 minutes of every hour were spent on patient care while the majority of time was consumed by administrative and teaching activities.   

The Adaptive Design technique was modeled on Toyota’s production line process improvement methodology. It is different from other approaches because it focuses on problem solving at the front-line. It involves watching a process, understanding triggers and interactions, and engaging the front-line to determine root cause and potential improvements.

As an example, Mary Ellen talked about the re-stocking process that was too complex for new employees, caused nurses to hunt for supplies, and generated inventory inefficiencies. Using Adaptive Design, the team eliminated inventory outages and reduced total time spent re-stocking by 50%.  Additional benefit – increased nursing time for patients.

The key takeaway for me was the importance of really understanding the impact to patients and front-line workers of poor processes – the concept of “humble learning” and engaging the front-line in problem-solving. Front-line employee engagement and linkage to customer loyalty is a theme that was prevalent in many of the Miami Net Promoter Conference presentations.