IDEAS Healthcare Practice- Part 2

In a previous post I talked about our 4-step process for improving the patient experience in hospitals and health care organizations. Through the patient’s eyes, we have developed a proven custom program to enhance and transform their experience and satisfaction ratings, throughout an entire hospital system. Here's the 4-step model for improvement:

Step 1: Culture Mapping
We begin with “Culture Mapping” the stories of patients, their families, and both clinical and non-clinical staff. Out of this time “living” in every corner of the institution—interviewing,
talking, listening, and watching — comes a matrix of stories and observations. Then, using StoryAnalytics, we distill this material into focused and actionable conclusions that become the seedbed for understanding the cultural drivers and the gaps that exist between the current patient experience and the optimal experience the institution is striving for. As a bonus, the staff is invigorated by inclusion in the process.

Step 2: StoryJam
Does the organization have a vision and mission that the staff is passionate about? Can the organization articulate the kind of experience they want to deliver to their patients? Through our years of creating entertainment experiences, we have crafted a rigorous story development process that can be applied to real life business issues in practical ways. In StoryJam, we make a safe and creative environment for 25 to 40 people from the organization. Over two days of iterative story making as part of our creative team, we draw out a clearly articulated vision of the patient experience within the organization. This is not traditional brainstorming. It harnesses the power of storytelling to engage the imagination of participants on the deepest level, and reinvigorates their vision of their work and future. We’ve used it to help organizations as diverse as Novant Health, Roche Molecular, Booz Allen Hamilton, and the United States Air Force Research Labs.

Step 3: Experience Design
Culture Mapping shows us the “actuals” of your patients’ experience and StoryJam weaves a rich tapestry of the “optimals.” Experience Design creates the operational architecture for bridging these two, with guidelines for the organization's culture, offerings and physical environment to deliver an engaging new patient experience across the organization. It includes global elements as well as distinctive offerings for unique points-of-touch to delight the patients wherever they are in their journey.

Step 4: Enculturation
With the design in hand for improvement and transformation, the our Learning Team, in collaboration with the client's HR professionals, develops a suite of Enculturation tools, media, and supporting programs - online, on screen, or in a classroom- to roll out the new Patient Experience to staff and embed behaviors so they aren’t a brief blip, but consistent, daily and authentic.

More later this week.