In 2016, UT Health San Antonio brought together an exciting new group of dedicated employees called Patient Experience Champions. The purpose of a Patient Experience Champion is to provide consistent patient-centered care by partnering with all team members at UT Health Physicians to exceed the expectations of patients and their families. The team of Patient Experience Champions includes one employee from each of UT Health Physicians’ practices and serves as an advisory resource for critical patient experience initiatives across UT Health Physicians. 

In 2017, the champions began conducting post-visit interviews of randomly selected patients as a means to learn about the perception of their visit, address any unanswered questions and ensure their expectations were met or exceeded. These interviews focus on the use of these two Studer tools: AIDET (Acknowledge, Introduce, Duration, Explanation and Thank you) and C.A.R.E. (Connect, Apologize, Repair and Exceed) for service recovery. This year’s goal was for each Patient Experience Champion to complete a minimum of five patient interviews every week (one per day). Champions were encouraged to empower other team members to assist with these interviews.  In the radiation oncology practice, Patient Experience Champion, Nora Villanueva, did just that.

Nora asked radiation oncology’s front desk specialist, Pam Hernandez, if she was interested in helping out with patient interviews. Pam, who is known for her compassion, readily agreed and interviewed her first patient. The results were positive — the patient felt valued to have been asked about the quality of her visit. Pam also felt valued because she was able to positively contribute to her practice and was able to make her patients feel recognized and important.

Pam conducted another interview, and another, and another. By the end of the day, Pam had interviewed 30 patients! Twenty-nine had only positive comments regarding their visit and the interview process. The one patient who wasn’t 100 percent positive recounted a piece of testing equipment that failed to work, which required the patient to be rescheduled. To remedy this lapse of service, Pam followed the C.A.R.E. guidelines: She Connected with the patient, then Apologized. Pam was able to Repair by rescheduling the patient and then Exceeded by providing the patient with a parking voucher.

Scenarios like the one above may seem too small to be significant, but to that patient, it meant the world. Many of our patients come to us experiencing what they interpret to be the worst day of their lives. Some are sick, others have pain, some are about to receive bad news, while some receive news of a clean bill of health. Pam demonstrated compassion and dignity where it otherwise might have gone unchecked. The patient left feeling respected, instead of feeling marginalized or like an inconvenience requiring to be rescheduled.

Our Patient Experience Champions are doing this great work every day, putting UT Health San Antonio's best foot forward, one patient at a time. It is these contributions to our continued standard of excellence that will continue to distinguish UT Health San Antonio as a leader in quality and respectful patient care. For questions or to learn more about the Patient Experience Champions, contact Reggie Regan.