The harsh reality in January 2006 was that poor patient satisfaction scores required drastic changes focused on our culture and a true method of accountability to hold our staff to new standards of excellence.  Our leadership and 1,500 team members made the commitment to “walk in our patients’ shoes” and cultivate a patient-centric care environment that led to an extensive patient satisfaction transformation with dramatic results.
Changing the Culture
Cultivating a positive, rewarding culture and appreciating our staff as our most valuable asset was our first priority.  The stressful work atmosphere created negative attitudes and infighting.  Recognize the importance of having fun includes our Wizard of Oz employee forum, just one example of our senior management leading by example.  Wearing costumes, our leadership staffed our Wizard of Oz forum with the theme “Put Yourself in the Patient’s Ruby Slippers” encouraging staff to appreciate our patients’ perceptions. 
The “putting yourself in the patients’ ruby slippers” theme carried over to the Mother/Baby Units’ focus on service recovery initiatives.  Employee ownership and teamwork made our service recovery program a tremendous success.  Our service recovery impact is identified by the inpatient survey “response concerns/complaints” question which has increased 67 percentile points since the 1^st quarter 2006 to the 1^st quarter of 2008.  
Norton Suburban Hospital prides itself on fostering a family environment through good and difficult times.  Team Cupid was established to support our employees affected by the war in the Middle East.  Employees provided the names and mailing addresses of relatives serving in Iraq or Afghanistan.  Team Cupid collection drives resulted in employees donating more than 1,500 pounds of personal care items, snacks, games, cards, etc.  .
Developing the Patient-Centric Environment
Patient-centric initiatives include steps that focus on the patient as the center of patient satisfaction.  Specific initiatives will be discussed.
Accountability and Development of the staff
Drastically improving patient care and communication were imperative.  Bedside handoffs and hourly rounding were implemented but staff resistance threatened to collapse the initiative.  To ensure accountability several steps were taken to impact results.
The Final Impression
Realizing that our hard work could be easily undone by a patient’s final impression, our patient-centric efforts continued with the discharge process.  Emphasis was placed on educating patients and helping them set realistic discharge expectations rather than equating their discharge to a hotel checkout process.  Several successful steps have been taken.
Recognition and Results – The Big Pay Off
Our staff’s teamwork and commitment has produced dramatic results including the J.D. Power and Associates Distinguished Hospital Program Award with an increase of 34 HSPI points over the previous survey period. 
Since concentrating on culture and accountability in the first quarter 2006, our overall quarterly inpatient satisfaction percentile scores have increased a dramatic 65 percentile points with significant increases for each inpatient survey question.  Additionally, Norton Suburban Hospital has attained its quarterly goals for the past five quarters.
Most important, beyond mean and percentiles…we’re making a positive difference in the lives of our patients.