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Patient Satisfaction Rating Soar on Good Samaritan Hospital's Heart Units
July 3, 2008
School kids know that ranking in the 99th percentile on a standardized test puts you among the best of the best. Achieving this high standard for patient care is equally as challenging and as gratifying. Good Samaritan Hospital's 7D and 11CD, open-heart and cardiothoracic units, each have reached this pinnacle in the last year.
Following hospital discharge, randomly selected patients are asked to rate the hospital on a scale of zero to 10. "These open-heart and cardiothoracic units have received higher scores from their patients than 99 percent of hospitals in our 300-hospital survey group across the country," says Lisa Williams, Service Excellence manager at Good Samaritan.
Assistant Nurse Manager Lisa Hess RN says 7D has achieved at least the 90th percentile for eight straight quarters. "It's been a morale booster," Hess says. "I think the nurses are pretty proud of this."
Katie Bayles RN, staff nurse who works on 7D and 11CD, says, "It feels good to have patients recognize that you are working to make them feel better. We try to keep our patients up-to-date on what's going on and to take time to listen to what they tell you. We incorporate families in all of our teaching."
Another success factor, Bayles believes, is the positive atmosphere on the units. "It's calming and encouraging here. We have quiet time every day from 2 to 3:30 p.m., healing touch and guided imagery CDs."
She continues, "The units are close-knit, and patients can tell there's good teamwork with nurses and physicians. I like my job and my co-workers. We do lots of things outside of work, too."
"Good Samaritan has made huge gains in patient satisfaction since 2004," Williams states. Explaining why this has happened, she theorizes, "Everyone on our staff is working together as we focus more and more on patient-centered care. It's right there in our mission statement. We need to provide great clinical service, plus listen and respond to our patients. As we see areas on our surveys that need improvement, we make them a top priority."
Bayles concludes, "We want our patients to leave here feeling that they had good nurses who cared about them and had their best interest at heart...like they were one of our own family."
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