Mindy is a University of Pittsburgh music student with an
important audition the next day. By the time she walks into the emergency department of this make-believe hospital setting, she has a suspected mass on
her trachea, her frantic mother arrives without gleaning much information from
staff, and it all takes both way too long and too many twists.
Welcome to Dr. DiGioia’s neighborhood.
As part of his
Patient and
Family Centered Care (PFCC) program at
UPMC, Anthony DiGioia, M.D.,
infuses conferences with a simulated exercise such as Mindy’s (not a real
student). Mindy’s pretend adventures were all a part of the Shadowing workshop Friday
at the Wyndham University Center, site of this two-day
PFCC VisionQuest conference. Shadowing a patient and family ultimately engages
patients as partners in the design of care delivery, which not only has been
shown to improve outcomes and the experience but also saves resources and
expenses.
“Ever since we started the PFCC Innovation Center in 2006,
the program has grown to include more than 60 different care-experience working
groups across the UPMC hospital system – and in other clinics and hospitals
across the country,” said
Dr. DiGioia,
the force behind the
Bone
and Joint Center at Magee-Womens Hospital. “By using a live, stage
production to simulate the clinical-care experience, it allows health-care
professionals in the audience to shadow the patient and family, then provide
feedback. It’s so important, we find, for us to view all care through the eyes
of patients and their families – and, in
the end, it enables us to improve our processes as well as the patients’
experience in order to provide better
care and comfort to them.”
John
Houde, M.D., an orthopaedic surgeon from central New Hampshire, attended
the VisionQuest conference in Washington, D.C., last May. This week, he sent
four of his practice’s key workers to Oakland for the next VisionQuest.
“He is very interested in the PFCC model,” said Becky Van
Dolah, his physician assistant. They’ve already launched the Shadowing
methodology, hoping to simplify a clinical calendar already crammed. “It can be
difficult to get into our clinic quickly, so we are looking at that process,
getting our patients in faster.
“It has been extremely helpful,” Van Dolah said of this
conference. “I’ve been all through the website, reading everything I can. But
to be here and go through it. . . my head is swimming with ideas right now. I
can’t wait to get back and get started.”
Labels: Anthony DiGioia, Magee-Womens Hospital of UPMC, Patient and Family Centered Care
