Craig Cooper - Elevating the human experience
For many patients, how that care is delivered is just as important as the care itself.
Feedback shows that being treated with respect and kindness, having questions answered and knowing what is happening is just as important as the clinical treatment people receive.
Often the interactions patients have with nonclinical staff like cleaners, receptionists and patient support teams have as much impact as their dealings with clinicians.
Elevating the human experience isn't just about delivering an exceptional patient experience: it's also about making that experience an empowering one for everyone involved in receiving and providing care.
In developing our first statewide strategy, we listened to hundreds of patients, their families and carers, volunteers and staff from across NSW Health. They shared their valuable insights on existing patient experience initiatives and where we could do better.
The result is Elevating the Human Experience – Our guide to action for patient, family, carer and caregiver experiences. The Guide explains what patients can expect from us and details our plan for delivering it in partnership with them and their communities.
NSW Health was announced as the winner of The Beryl Institute's Organisational Innovation Award 2022 at ELEVATE PX. This award is global recognition of NSW Health's commitment and innovation to Elevating the Human Experience.
NSW Health announced as winner of The Beryl Institute's Organisational Innovation Award 2022
An important part of this strategy is partnering with patients, carers and families to improve and develop our services. Contact us to find out more about how you can get involved.
Delivering an exceptional experience can make a world of difference to patient recovery and ease the worries of loved ones.
This first statewide Guide to action for patient, family, carer and caregiver experiences is the result of over a year of consultation with patients, their families, carers, caregivers, volunteers and NSW Health staff to find out what they think of patient experience programs already underway and where we need to focus on improving.
It outlines how we can all partner together to transform the way NSW Health delivers high quality, compassionate and personalised care.
Patient, family, carer and caregiver involvement is a crucial part of improving the patient experience and we aim to partner with them in these key areas:
Enabler 1: Leadership, accountability and governance
Enabler 2: Culture and staff experience
Enabler 3: Collaborative partnerships
Enabler 4: Innovation and technology
Enabler 5: Information and communication
Enabler 6: Measurement, feedback and response
Enabler 7: Environment and hospitality
Each of these areas represents an opportunity for you to get involved in the relevant committee and bring the patient perspective to the way initiatives are developed and delivered.
Contact us for more information on how you can get involved in an enabler committee.
Health Consumers NSW welcomes the release of "Elevating the human experience: our guide to action for patient, family and carer and caregiver experiences". This "Guide to action" emphasises the importance of people’s experience of using health services and, most importantly, the link between a good experience of care and positive health outcomes. This work aligns with the vision of Health Consumers NSW to ensure that health consumers are involved in the planning, design and governance of health services in NSW.
Patient experience is more than just receiving good quality clinical care. It is the totality of all interactions with health services. For many people, their interactions with nonclinical staff, cleaners, porters and receptionists have as meaningful an impact as their interaction with clinicians. With this in mind, I am pleased to see that this Guide to action goes beyond the measuring of patient reported outcomes and experiences, as important as these metrics are, and recognises the importance of people’s holistic experiences of care.
For most people, the most important aspects of their care are that they are treated with respect and kindness, their questions are answered, and they, their families and carers know what is going on and what to expect. We look forward to the implementation of this Guide to action and the involvement of health consumers, patients, families and carers in the development and governance of local initiatives to improve patient partnerships throughout NSW.
