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Trends in Patient Experience

Release Date: July 19, 2022 • Episode #225

Health is a deeply personal topic and these last few years have pushed healthcare institutions into making unprecedented changes in how they deliver that care. Naturally, this has had an impact on the patients’ experience. XM professionals in healthcare institutions must be mindful that patients are NOT customers, and design programs accordingly to improve the patient experience. Host Steve Walker welcomes Sarah Andrews, vice president for advisory services at Walker, and Sarah Gilstrap, a senior consultant for healthcare customer experience and an XM scientist at Qualtrics, for a discussion on trends in patient experience.

Sarah Andrews and Sarah Gilstrap

Sarah Andrews (Walker)
Sarah Gilstrap (Qualtrics)
Connect with Sarah Andrews
Connect with Sarah Gilstrap

Highlights

Focus on the “Good”

Sarah G.: “…what I’m hearing from customers that I speak to on a day to day basis is it became very demotivating that our traditional approach to patient experience of watching the scores and doing the percentile ranks and the benchmarks is was very demotivating for a workforce that was already at its lowest point, burned out as a result of COVID experiencing the highest resignation rates in the industry in the history of the industry. And so the shift that we’re seeing, the trend that we’re seeing with the customers that we’re supporting is a shift toward recognizing the good. So rather than focusing on what’s not working, we’re going to highlight what is working. And we’re going to have this influx of positive recognition flowing in through these surveys that can get back to the front line as quickly as possible.”

We Need Patient Stories

Sarah A.: “Get in the platform, look at your patient comments that have come in overnight. Look for some of those items that you can go back to the huddle in the morning and talk to your team about what you read. Our teams are feeling so depleted right now and so the best thing that we can be doing is connecting them back to their their craft. When I think about health care and the people who choose to be in health care, it is a calling to us. It is something that is really meaningful. And so we need to help build that back up. And the best way to do that is through patient stories.”

Transcript

The CX Leader Podcast: "Trends in Patient Experience": Audio automatically transcribed by Sonix

The CX Leader Podcast: "Trends in Patient Experience": this wav audio file was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the best speech-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors.

Steve:
I'm going to warn you, this episode is going to feature a sensitive topic to many people because we all have some sort of experience in this field.

Sarah A.:
The level of stress that's related to some of those health care choices that you're making, if something falls through the cracks, included in some of those decisions can be really stressful on patients and families, on caregivers. And so how can we help our providers really understand some of those themes right away so that they can close the loop and make sure that those patients feel heard?

Steve:
We're talking about the patient experience on this episode of The CX Leader Podcast.

Announcer:
The CX Leader Podcast with Steve Walker is produced by Walker, an experience management firm that helps our clients accelerate their XM success. You can find out more at walkerinfo.com.

Steve:
Well, hello, everyone. I'm Steve Walker, host of The CX Leader Podcast and thank you for listening. As we like to say on this podcast, it's never been a better time to be a CX leader and we explore the topics and themes to help leaders like you deliver amazing experiences for your customers. A person's health is a deeply personal topic, and these last couple of years have pushed health care institutions into making unprecedented changes in how they deliver that care. Naturally, this has had an impact on the patient's experience. XM professionals in health care institutions must be mindful that patients are not just customers and design programs accordingly to improve the patient experience. Well, my guests today on this podcast are uniquely qualified to help us understand this unique challenge and trend that we're seeing in respect to patient experiences. Sarah Andrews is my friend and colleague. She is a vice president and consultant here at Walker, one of our thought leaders, particularly on the patient experience side. And Sarah Gilstrap is a senior consultant for health care, customer experience and an XM scientist at Qualtrics. And full disclosure, we do have a strategic partnership with Qualtrics, so it's always a pleasure to have our friends from Qualtrics join us on the podcast. Sarah and Sarah, thank you for being guests on the podcast.

Sarah A.:
Thanks for having me, Steve.

Steve:
Well, let me start with you first, Sarah Gilstrap and maybe just to make sure, just in case our listeners don't know who you are or a little bit more about kind of your background and what Qualtrics is doing in the Patient Experience field, just give us a little bit of your background and how you came to your current position and sort of what the focus of your job is day to day.

Sarah G.:
Sure. Thanks so much for having me, Steve. I'm really a pleasure to be invited on this show. I spend many of my days working alongside Sarah Andrews at Walker. We're affectionately called the Sarah's on many calls. So, so thanks for having me. So a little bit about my background. I've been working in patient and employee experience and health care for about 15 years. The majority of that was spent in the health care provider side running these experience management programs. And then more recently, within the last two years, I made my way over to the tech side and and really have enjoyed supporting many different organizations and sharing and collaborating and surfacing best practices to continue to improve experience. But I didn't set out to pursue a career in patient experience and actually not sure how many of us did. You don't go to school for patient experience. I went to school for advertising and spent some some time at an ad agency straight out of college and was just tired of designing ads to sell people stuff that they didn't need. And I thought maybe if I put these skills to good use in health care, I could help to communicate a message of services that support people and saving lives and connecting them to services that they do need. And so I landed in health care marketing and and quickly found that that my relentless commitment to listening to the voice of the patients was really where I felt at home and most comfortable. And to surface those insights and to get those insights back to the front line, to get those insights back to decision makers within the organization that could bring about change was a really compelling mission to be part of, and the rest is history.

Steve:
Well, thanks. That's a great, I think, just testament to the power of experience management and specifically patient experience. I know you're really more come from the classic marketing, branding, advertising space, but I think experience management is sort of the manifestation of that in actually delivering that. And you use the term kind of mission driven several times. So I think that will resonate well with our listeners. Sarah Andrews, I know you well, but just for the benefit of our listeners, give them a little bit of your impressive background and how you came to be at Walker.

Sarah A.:
Sure. I actually fell in love with health care starting back in high school. It was my first job. I worked at a compounding pharmacy here in South Bend, Indiana, and it was an all female crew. And I got to see firsthand just the power of connection. We had pharmacists who are working with very, very sick patients. They had to come to us for special medication. And I saw the power of communication, of truly trying to understand the needs of those patients, building that trust that they had in that pharmacist to help them on the right journey in terms of. The clinical decisions that they had to make for their health care, and not just themselves, but for children and for oncology patients. So I really fell in love with that. I went to school at Purdue focused on health science and a minor in marketing. So Sarah and I have more than just our names in common there. After school went to Community Mental Health Center and was in charge of marketing there for older adult population. And so that same kind of drive around communication, how do we build trust with people who really need help but don't know how to access those resources? And then I spent the next decade at a large patient experience management firm where I was a consultant and had the pleasure of working with some of the largest complex health systems in our country, going on sites, spending time with them in inpatient rooms, seeing how a unit is working, and really seeing once again that theme around communication, trust, compassionate care and the impact that can make on people. So super happy to be in the Walker family now and to bring this industry focus to our company.

Steve:
Well, I think that just from those quick intros, our listeners are in for a treat because the Sarah's really do bring a whole lot of expertise and experience to this field. You know, in the intro, I didn't write it, but I wish I could say I did write it. But, you know, there are a few things that people consume that are very, very personal. And I can't think of anything that's much more personal than your own health. So we really are here in rarefied experience air. So if you could just frame up for us a little bit, kind of some of the differences or the complexities that patient experience deals with relative to sort of maybe what our average CX Pro might experience. Sarah Andrews, do you want to take that first?

Sarah A.:
Sure. So some of the things that we're seeing is just the level of empathy that is needed in these interactions. And certainly any good CX interaction is going to have that level of communication, of understanding the need of closing the loop. But when we're talking about something that could fall through the cracks, whether it be on a purchase that you make online, the level of stress that's included in some of those decisions can be really stressful on patients and families, on caregivers. And so how can we help our providers really understand some of those themes right away so that they can close the loop and make sure that those patients feel heard?

Sarah G.:
Yeah, so kind of three ways that I would highlight that are different than traditional customer experience. So one, oftentimes you're your customer in health care doesn't have a choice. They have not chosen to end up in the emergency room. Right. They have not chosen your specific facility. It's where they they ended up when they needed care. Health care does not discriminate. Every individual can be a consumer, regardless of if you have an email address or a cell phone number to send a survey to, regardless of if you have a home address or coverage and funds to to access those services. If you need care, you can be provided care, can be provided those services. So similar to public health and public sector and individuals are are not necessarily consumer by choice. And the second way that I would say that patient experience is different is that there are funds on the line. So with the introduction of the Affordable Care Act in 2009, it made the regulatory surveys, the CAP surveys that were were created and endorsed by CMS, It tied those to reimbursement funds. So for Medicare services, you submit your survey scores and you get reimbursement. And that's a that's a revenue model for your health system. And so the stakes are very high to make sure that that your patient experience is meeting those thresholds to get the optimal reimbursement that's on the line.

Sarah G.:
And then the third way that I would say that patient's experience is different is life or death could be on the line. It's a highly emotional, highly personal experience. Just like you mentioned, Steve, we're not talking about about buying a widget or asking accessing services that we may or may not need that are critical to our daily life. Truly life or death could be on the line. So let me give you an example. We had a customer recently that was doing a proof of concept with us, and one of the pieces of feedback that they received through their patient experience surveys was about the prescription drug. And through closing the loop, they contacted the patient and they found out that the wrong prescription drug had been sent and the patient had identified that issue through the Patient Experience Survey. And so because they were able to close the loop, they were able to address that issue. That could have been a life or death issue, unfortunately. But we're resurfacing insights that are not just limited to products or services, they're also inclusive of very personal, very emotionally high, high stakes experiences.

Steve:
Yeah. And you know, the other one I was going to highlight and maybe you could comment on this either of you, but we also have this complex stakeholder model, too. You know, it's health care. You might be following the advice of, say, your doctor or a pharmacist or a PA who's a third party and then somebody else might be paying for it. So then you have that element.

Sarah G.:
So who's the customer and who's the customer?

Steve:
Yeah. But ultimately, you know, we come back to the to the person that's receiving the service and that is the patient. So. Well, let's talk a little bit more about just some of the trends that that we're seeing today, particularly with the quick changes going on in the in the environment. Maybe I'll start with you this time, Sarah Gilstrap, and then we'll go to Sarah Andrews on this.

Sarah G.:
Sure. So like I like I just mentioned, it's important to recognize how far we've come on this journey with patient experience. So really the field of patient experience has been in existence for about two decades. And through that introduction of reimbursement being tied to the CAPS surveys that really propelled and made the field of patient experience that much more legitimate. It was very tangible, and you were able to quantify the return on investment of these surveys and of the survey results. The unfortunate outcome of the reimbursement tied to the surveys resulted in an intense focus on scores. A lot of score watching across these organizations and patient experience was never supposed to be about score watching. It's always been about the experience, but we know that that scores and benchmarks are really the gold standard in health care. We benchmark everything. We benchmark quality and safety and clinical outcomes. So why not start to benchmark our experience scores? And that's really where we have ended up. And I would say kind of the crux of it has been COVID. We ended up in this place where patient experience has been viewed as opportunities for improvement, what's what's not working so that we can make those improvements.

Sarah G.:
It was less about what is working and the goodness and more about the scores, more about the percentile rankings. And what I'm hearing from customers that I speak to on a day to day basis is it became very demotivating that our traditional approach to patient experience of watching the scores and doing the percentile ranks and the benchmarks is was very demotivating for a workforce that was already at its lowest point, burned out as a result of COVID experiencing the highest resignation rates in the industry in the history of the industry. And so the shift that we're seeing, the trend that we're seeing with the customers that we're supporting is a shift toward recognizing the good. So rather than focusing on what's not working, we're going to highlight what is working. And we're going to have this influx of positive recognition flowing in through these surveys that can get back to the front line as quickly as possible. And so they're shifting their shifting their focus on from score watching to really highlighting the good.

Steve:
Yeah, and that ties right back into your your focus on employees and what we got to do with that. Sarah Andrews, what are some of the trends that you're watching and what's kind of caught your fancy here recently?

Sarah A.:
Yeah, well, I'm really energized by it. Seeing clients who are really no longer satisfied with just focusing on post visit surveys. There's a long delay that you have to wait and kind of see. How was that experience? Well, now they don't have to do that anymore. And so they're kind of to Sarah's point, going back to the drawing board now that we've endured this pandemic and it's given them really an opportunity to shake things up a little bit. Last month there was an article from Rick Evans, who is the chief experience officer at New York Presbyterian Hospital. And it was an open letter to actual CMS to say, hey, it's been 16 years since this first tool came out. And that survey that Sarah talked about that's tied to reimbursement, that is measuring how often things happen. So, hey, how often did your nurse talk with you about courtesy and respect? How often do they listen carefully to you? Is that really what we want to be measuring? Think about all the things that have changed in the last 16 years, let alone the last two years. We haven't evolved to meet the patient's needs and really, truly understanding the voice and what where we're falling short, what we should be doing differently. And that's what gets me excited about. The clients I partner with is that they want to truly know what our patients telling us right now. How can we understand how we can fix things while they're. So within our walls, we don't have to wait two or three weeks for a survey to be returned back in the mail or call them on a very lengthy phone survey. We're able to get those quick bursts of feedback while we're rounding on a patient, while they're still there, and we can close that loop and really make sure that they feel heard.

Steve:
Yeah, this is so awesome because the two Sarahs are literally talking to the leaders in the field every single day as part of their professional lives. Let's kind of take that forward without giving away any confidential or information. But but just what are some of the really exciting developments or what are you seeing that's really having an immediate impact on the way that health care is delivered and that patients are seeing their health care provided?

Sarah A.:
Sure. One of the things that I'm seeing is just the cross functional nature. A few years back, at a former place, it was, okay, this is this person's job. They're in charge of patient experience. And now, because we're getting more real time data, we're able to bring in those other key departments that really have a big impact on what we're doing. So how are we including food service? How are we including environmental services as a part of the patient? There is a hospital I spent a lot of time with and they had one patient who was actually keeping a log of all the people that she ran into over the course of her stay. And it was over 50 people who came into contact with her. It wasn't just her nurses, it wasn't just her doctors. It was people in the environmental services staff, people in the food service, the staff, the maintenance staff. Each of those people have an impact, and they leave that impression on that patient, on their family members, on their other team members. And so that's the exciting thing for me, that it's it's no longer just stuck in one department, but people are really, truly seeing that they each have an impact that they can make on each other.

Sarah A.:
Cleveland Clinic is a former client of mine, and it's very public that they have done a big push around caregiver education. One of the coolest things that they did is they brought together all 40,000 of their employees over a series of different meetings, and they had cross functional tables where they would have a surgeon sitting next to the parking attendant sitting next to a nurse. And they jotted down the patient journey in that moment and how they each played a part in that. At the end of that exercise, they changed all of their badges. Now their badges no longer say I'm the head of the institute or I'm a nurse. They all say caregiver. Whether you're taking a parking ticket, whether you are the head of an institute and a distinguished physician, you are all a caregiver. And that is the really exciting part of how this data can empower people around the organization.

Steve:
Yeah, you just really expanded my mind there. Sarah Andrews You know, because I was thinking about it. If you're, if you're in the hospital, say, even for just one night or a couple of nights, you know, it's not just about the health care. You know, there's a whole lot of other things that are going to go on around that. And so you're right. And that is part of the experience.

Steve:
Hey, my guests on the podcast this week are Sarah Andrews, my colleague here at Walker. She's a vice president, consulting in the patient experience space. And Sarah Gilstrap, who's a senior consultant in the health care customer experience and also an XM scientist at our partners at Qualtrics. Sarah Gilstrap what are some of the things that you're seeing that are very exciting and what do you see kind of right here on the cusp of where we're going?

Sarah G.:
Yeah. Yeah. So I would say consumer health care, consumers expectations have never been higher. Over the last couple of years, we as an industry, we paused care. We welcome people back to care. We paused care again. We introduced telehealth and service delivery from your living room, and then we took it away. We've really rattled the way that our consumers expect to be cared for and expect to to receive care. And and they're looking outside of health care to brands that they know and love for those expectations. They know that they can get an excellent experience every time they fly Southwest Airlines. They know that they're going to hop on their Peloton every morning and knock out that workout because they love the community of Peloton. They know that if they're traveling to a city that they don't know, it's going to be easy to call an Uber when they need it, how they need it, and get to where they need to go. And so really what what I'm seeing is health care leaders looking outside of the industry to say what's what's working and what are consumers expecting. And that's being delivered by these other brands. And how can we bring that to health care? I think also the other big driver right now of looking outside of health care is the really intense focus on finances. So as a result of of COVID, margins are very thin right now, and there's a lot of reorganization happening. There's a lot of assessment of of how funds are being spent. And so leaders are having to think creatively in a way that maybe they weren't historically accustomed to. And they're looking outside of healthcare going, well, you know, how is this working and retail and hospitality and how my brain knows best practices to to scale in a sustainable way within my health care system.

Sarah G.:
So that's what I'm seeing. And and the outcome of that is really reimagining the way that we think about patient experience. So shifting from these reports to insights, shifting from scores to voices, shifting from benchmarks to improvement, shifting from samples of listening to really listening to the voice of every individual that we serve. These are innovative approaches for traditional patient experience, and the only way to do this is really to have a vendor and have a partner that works with these brands so that you can bring those best practices. Another call that I was on last week, I was introducing our technical account manager to the Chief Experience Officer, and this particular Chief Experience Officer actually came from outside of health care and is now working in health care. She came from retail and is working in health care now. And I was introducing the technical account managers and I said, So they're working on your health care account and they're also working on Southwest Airlines and this technical account manager's working on your account, and they're also working on Peloton, and you're going to be able to talk to them every week and say, Hey, you know what? What we're doing right here and health care is not working. What have you done over at Southwest that might be working better or what have you done over at time on their Qualtrics account that might be working better? So Qualtrics really comes to the table with that holistic approach so that we can help health care organizations think differently.

Steve:
Yeah, you made a really good point there about looking outside of your own industry, and I think that's a place where maybe health care has been a little bit behind. I know a lot of my background was more B to B, but, you know, back in the mid 2010s, you know, when you could call an Uber and you could see actually where your ride was. We had clients that were saying like, well, if, if I can see where my Uber is, why can't I see where my shipment is? And so, again, the fast moving consumer goods drive that desire. And if the, you know, the ultimate customer in this case, the patient is going to ask for those things, then then we have to respond. Hey, this is really exciting. Let's talk now, maybe a little further off in the future. And where do you see this going for health care? You know, a little longer term, maybe 3 to 5 years. What are you most excited about and optimistic about and the ability to impact? I'll start with you this time, Sarah Gilstrap.

Sarah G.:
So I would say where we're going and really the Barrel Institute has has led with this vision. So we're big fans of Jason Wolfe and team over at the Barrel Institute and strong supporters of the important work that they're doing. And I don't know if it was a year or two ago now, they really cast this vision for the human experience in health care. But that we've got two words. Words that we use means so much to what we're describing. And it's not just about patient. It's really about human experience. And that's inclusive of not just the individual that's in the bed, that's also inclusive, the individual that's at the bedside or the individual that's at home supporting the individual in the bed. It's family member experience, it's support person experience, it's nurse experience, physician experience, receptionist experience. It's all inclusive human experience. And so my prediction and where we're going and and the leaders are already there. We already have health care systems doing this is bringing together and patient experience and employee experience. And to one unified view, there's an undeniable interconnectedness between the employee and the patient experience. And rather than doing this independently in silos, rather than having to separate passwords where you log into this system and then you log into that system, we're viewing it connected and we're seeing where there are dependencies and there are correlations so that we know if we invest in this particular thing, if we invest in employee health and wellbeing, we know that we're going to see that that impact in the patient experience.

Sarah G.:
We've proven it. There's research that says we can do that, but we've got to bring it together in the same platform. I think the other the other piece that goes along with this and Sarah Andrews alluded to this as well, is moving from transactional to relational. And so rather than viewing it as one moment in time as a Post Care survey. We've got to start thinking about this as a journey, as a patient journey. A physician would never take a pulse of a patient and give a diagnosis. A patient, a physician is going to look at multiple different signs and vitals and bloodwork and run scans in order to make a diagnosis of what's needed. And that's what we need, is multiple points of input to really view this journey holistically. So and that's the vision that many of these systems have and that's the direction that they're going and we hope the rest of the healthcare industry follows.

Steve:
Sarah Andrews How about your perspective on sort of the long term game here?

Sarah A.:
Yeah, to borrow a little bit from what Sarah was saying earlier around looking to other industries, personalization is really where health care is going. We think about all the data that your physician has on you right now and think about the power of adding in your voice from previous experiences into that data. So just truly understanding that who you are as a person. But what are some of your preferences? How do you like to receive information? Do you need to process information first before you can have a really thoughtful conversation with your provider when you're making a big health care decision? And so stitching all of that data together, that is really the power of the platform that our clients are using right now, the ability to look not only at the data from the EMR, but then adding in that patient experience across the journey, not just at the end of your visit, but throughout. And then how does that connect back to your outcomes? How does that connect back to the hospital's financial well-being? How does that connect back to staff turnover at that particular facility? So that is really the power that we're seeing with some facilities who are are already doing this. So it starts off small. It starts off with just reporting your data to begin with alongside your employee experience data, alongside your clinical outcome data and your financial data. But then being able to put that all back together and tell the true story of who I am as a patient and what I need.

Steve:
Very nicely done. I mean, again, I've learned so much. I always learn stuff on the podcast, but today I've learned a whole lot. And, you know, really anything on earth that could be more about a journey than your own personal health. Right? You know, we all want quality of life. And when you have your health, you kind of take it for granted. And when you don't have it, nothing else matters. So, you know, I know it's not going to be easy, but it certainly is worthwhile effort and very noble. You know, we've talked a lot about kind of the research and the in the technology and, you know, some of the changes and the big things that you're seeing. But we're not really here to do surveys and we're not really here to run software and technology solutions. So what is it that is the real mission and vision of PX. Sarah Gilstrap, do you want to go first on that one?

Sarah G.:
Sure. And then as one one leader that I was working with recently put it, he said, you know, we've changed from our legacy vendor to Qualtrics and now we're just dancing with a different partner. And, you know, if you don't change anything, if you don't change the dance, there's not going to be anything different about the outcomes that you're seeing. And and really action is what is is meaningful in this transition and this modern approach to patient experience. So that what what was really compelling to me and the reason that I joined Qualtrics was Qualtrics incredible way to drive action in a way that historically we haven't been able to do in patient experience with legacy vendors and it's technology enabled service recovery is the way that I describe it at Qualtrics. We call it closed loop. That's what they call it in other industries and health care, we call it service recovery. And that's the ability to trigger alerts, to tell people to follow up when an experience was less than ideal. And so it's technology powered service recovery at scale in a sustainable way where individuals can be held accountable and you can track results as an outcome of of completing that follow up. In addition to completing service recovery, you can also use those alerts to trigger a recognition. So if something has gone really well, if you're getting top scores or you're getting positive recognition comments, you could also send out alerts to specific leaders or individuals to say, Hey, great job, well done, and look at this positive feedback that we've received. So it's it's twofold and it's really the power of of closed loop that we historically haven't been able to access and with health care vendors.

Steve:
Sarah Andrews you have a long history in this field. Kind of, what's your take on this closed loop concept?

Sarah A.:
It is a power that they never knew they had before, and it is the key thing when we first implement our brand new client who's coming from another vendor, they are so excited because they think about all the voices they might have lost. Not being able to to reach back out to that patient and say, hey, we heard you and this is what we're doing to fix that going forward. This is new power that they will be able to look more holistically at their data to say, hey, we're noticing that these things are happening on three north, but they're not happening on five West. What can what can that teach us in that moment by looking holistically at all the data that's coming back all those voices? We talked earlier about, what are those key drivers of overall patient experience? It's ease of getting care. It's trust, it's emotional connection. What better way to prove that out than to close the loop. When I'm putting taking time to put feedback on a survey in the moment or after a visit, I want to know that that went somewhere. I want to know that someone read my feedback and is going to do something different to either prevent something bad from happening to me in the future or someone else. And so that's really the exciting thing when we think about closed loop, the ability that it has not just in that moment, but then holistically to to zoom out a little bit and look for those patterns of care that we can use for improvement initiatives going forward.

Steve:
Well, Sarah Gilstrap and Sarah Andrews, we've reached that point of The CX Leader Podcast where I ask every guest for their take home value. This is a concept or a tip or something that our pros could take back to the office tomorrow or next week and actually implement to improve whatever they're already doing. So we'll start with you this time. Sarah Andrews.

Sarah A.:
All right. So for those of you who know me, one of my key values is connection. And so for me, my take home value for a CX leader is just to leverage the patient comments from the survey. I find that a lot of times when you start a story with a metric or a quantitative data point, people can argue that a way. You can get a lot of pushback to that data. But when you start a conversation around the narrative of a patient that they took time to leave on a survey, it's really hard to argue with that. It brings the compassion and empathy back into that moment. And so make it part of your morning ritual. Get in the platform, look at your patient comments that have come in overnight. Look for some of those items that you can go back to the huddle in the morning and talk to your team about what you read. Our teams are feeling so depleted right now and so the best thing that we can be doing is connecting them back to their their craft. When I think about health care and the people who choose to be in health care, it is a calling to us. It is something that is really meaningful. And so we need to help build that back up. And the best way to do that is through patient stories. So use those patient comments on a a morning basis, on afternoon basis at the shift change, making sure we're using them for reward recognition, calling out to those team members who are mentioned by name, by a patient, and making sure they're understanding the impact they have every day.

Steve:
Thanks. And Sarah Gilstrap, wrap us up with your take home value.

Sarah G.:
Sure. So I'm I'm going to to borrow from Dr. Adrian Boise, our Chief Medical officer. For all of us that are members of the Dr. Adrian Boise Fan Club, I will share a tip from her. And she's really encouraged us as a as a team and as an organization to focus on on gratitude, to focus more on gratitude. And so internally, we've implemented strategies to to make sure that we're recognizing each other and showing each other gratitude. My encouragement and and challenge to anyone listening to this podcast to find ways to incorporate gratitude into every meeting and to every communication, regardless of the format. And, and it doesn't have to be extensive. It can be simple, it can be quick, but find ways to recognize peers, find ways to highlight what's working. And I'm starting to see these paper cards and doctor's offices. I don't know if you're starting to see these, too, where it says Leave a message for our staff, which is is a great start. And I would encourage you to think about digital scalable ways to do that as well, to get those insights faster than someone going and collecting those cards. Maybe it's a QR code, maybe it's a quick survey link. Maybe it's adding the question to your current survey questions that if your is not giving you the option to add that question, maybe you should look at vendor that will give you the option to add that question because that gratitude is really important, especially during these times.

Steve:
I love the concept of gratitude. I learned this kind of the hard way through my own journey, but one of my mentors used to use the analogy BIG: begin in gratitude. Big begin in gratitude. And and the concept is when you're feeling grateful, it's impossible to feel jealous or envious or any of the other sort of negative vibes. And I think in particular your whole concept of connectedness and focus on the good, it's just a very powerful concept, particularly for for those of you who are so dedicated to the craft. We've had a great podcast today. I want to thank both Sara Andrews and Sara Gilstrap for being tremendous guests. Could you just quickly give us a quick contact information just in case somebody would want to continue the conversation or maybe reference where they might find you? Sara Gilstrap.

Sarah G.:
Sure. So my email is sarahg@qualtrics.com. Thats s a r a h, the only way to spell Sarah and G as in Gilstrap Qualtrics dot com.

Steve:
And I found you on LinkedIn too, so they can find you on LinkedIn too. And Sara Andrews.

Sarah A.:
You can find me on the Walker website, walkerinfo.com and on LinkedIn.

Steve:
Great. Well, hey, thanks again for giving us a tremendous podcast today. And if you want to talk about anything you heard on this podcast or about how Walker can help your business customer experience, feel free to email me at podcast@walkerinfo.com. Be sure to check out our website cxleaderpodcast.com to subscribe to the show and find all of our previous episodes, podcast series and contact information. You can let us know how we're doing or drop us an idea for a future podcast. The CX Leader Podcast is a production of Walker. We're an experience management firm that helps companies accelerate their XM success. You can read more about us at walkerinfo.com. Thank you for listening. And remember, it's a great time to be a PX leader. We'll see you again next time.

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