Hosted by the doctors and staff volunteers from the Bone and Joint Center (BJC) at UPMC Magee-Womens Hospital, the Patient Reunion allows former BJC patients to reconnect with their doctors and care team members. The BJC and goShadow also use this event as an opportunity to connect with and ask former patients “What Matters to You?” type questions in order to ensure we are building patient-centered care processes.

The BJC measures its performance towards person-centered care with a composite measure of both process performance and patient reported outcomes defined by The American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons (AAOS). Specifically as an extension of person-centeredness, the BJC measures its success through patient reported experiences with its patient education process offering a variety of information and treatment options to BJC patients. One way the BJC collects this information is through the BJC patient Reunion.

At this event goShadow surveyed former patients with two freeform questions: (1) “What information do you wish you had known prior to surgery?” and (2) “What is one piece of advice you would give to a patient prior to surgery?.” Results of the survey were analyzed and areas for educational improvement were identified. 

When asked “What information do you wish you had known prior to surgery?,” 37.14% of patients indicated that they felt that all information was well explained. Iteratively improving the patient education process allowed patients to feel more comfortable heading into their procedure. One area for improvement to the process we discovered was former patients requested more information about what life after surgery would be like (22.86%). When asked “What is one piece of advice you would give to a patient prior to surgery?,” 39.5% of patients mentioned the importance of exercise and/or rehab in the recovery process. As a direct result from patient responses to this survey the BJC will coach office and surgical PAs to address common physical changes and include these points in updated BJC patient education. Additionally leadership will gauge expectations of the post-surgery period by asking patients of their ideas before the surgery takes place. Create a system of patient-mentors to provide support in the pre- and post-op periods. Success will be measured by patient reported experiences in follow up surveys that focus on these changes. 

The feedback received from the WMTY survey can be used as an integral value towards measuring the quality of care, patient education, preventative care, and postoperative improvement. 

If you want more tips to find out What Matters To You? And how goShadow can provide shadowing, WMTY, and co-design toolkits, as well as various case studies and blogs relating to the quality improvement of patient education and preventative care, visit https://www.goshadow.org/.

Also check out the full report!

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Source:

American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons - aaos. (n.d.). Retrieved July 1, 2022, from https://www.aaos.org/globalassets/quality-and-practice-resources/quality-performance-measures-resouces/pm_methods_v2.pdf