Making Communication a Priority

What is your hospital doing to preserve compassionate care after recent passage of health care reform?

It was a hazy morning in Boston but the response was crystal clear: enhance communication.

At a breakfast gathering of current and former fundraising chairs for the Kenneth B. Schwartz Center, Ellen Zane, President and CEO of Tufts Medical Center, and Peter Slavin MD, President of Massachusetts

General Hospital (MGH) spoke about specific programs they have implemented to increase patient engagement and improve coordination as a means of improving communication.

In 2008, Tufts Medical Center created a medical home for patients with diabetes. The program has been able to improve coordination by making a single physician, with the support of a clinical team, responsible for managing all aspects of patient care.

Tufts Medical has also implemented several programs on the inpatient side:

Ticket to Safe Travel improves the process of handing off a patient from one clinical team to another;

Daily Goal Sheet specifically defines clinical objectives for each patient.

Ellen closed by noting that as we embrace health care reform we can't forget the importance of communication.

MGH, like Tufts Medical, is exploring variants of the medical home concept. The Medicare Demonstration Program, targeted at the sickest Medicare patients, has successfully reduced hospitalizations and costs. The Ambulatory Practice of the Future, opening later this month, seeks to engage patients by creating an individualized website where they can interact with clinicians.

Peter summed things up nicely when he pointed out that the goal of all these efforts is to free health care providers so they can focus their time on meaningful patient interactions.

What is your hospital doing to preserve compassionate care after recent passage of health care reform?