Patient Experience has developed screen savers, a toolkit and other resources that are helping YNHHS and its delivery networks improve the patient experience.
Good news! Yale New Haven Health is improving in its patient experience key metric, “likelihood of recommending” – our system objective and Performance Incentive Plan (PIP) goal.
This improvement is driven by staff’s dedication and hard work and supported by a toolkit that helps employees understand and perform behaviors that yield positive experience outcomes.
At each delivery network the percentage of patients who answered “yes” to the Press Ganey survey question “How likely are you to recommend (us) to others?” increased. Overall, the percentage for YNHHS increased from 85.23 in fiscal year 2024 to 85.95 in the first month of fiscal year 2025, moving the health system up two percentile ranks. YNHHS continues to perform better than it did last year.
“We want to keep that momentum going and continue improving, not just to reach a particular score, but to ensure that our patients know we care about them in addition to caring for them,” said Tina Bennett, YNHHS chief experience officer.
How do we do this?
Patient Experience has updated its comprehensive, easy-to-use toolkit. While created for managers, it contains tips and other information all employees can use. The toolkit, first launched in 2022, includes:
- A fiscal year 2025 patient experience calendar with topics departments can review during weekly huddles. Topics cover aspects of care that patients value highly, such as “building a connection,” “responsiveness” and “staff working together.” Each topic is tied to one of YNHHS’ Standards of Professional Behavior.
- Huddle cards with tips on improving these aspects of care. For example, “building a connection” tips include best practices for rounding on patients and loved ones, keeping them informed about delays, and talking with patients about their personal interests.
- Information on patient experience improvement training on bedside rounding, enhanced relationship-centered communication and, new this year, supporting a restful hospital environment.
The patient experience improvement toolkit has been distributed to all managers and can be downloaded from the Patient Experience department intranet site. Other resources on the site include a discussion board, news updates, an events calendar and a submission form for service requests. Visit the Patient Experience site.
National Patient Experience Week is April 28 - May 2. Watch for information about activities planned by YNHHS’ Patient Experience department for the week.
