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Speaking the Same Language
Using a simple card as a reminder, this urgent care team asked for patients’ race, ethnicity, and primary language to better recognize and address members’ health needs and risks.
- Medical treatment is more effective when members receive care and information in their primary language.
- Adding a questionnaire card during the check-in process reminds team members to ask patients about their race, ethnicity, and primary language
Personalizing Care for Patients
Asking patients about their sexual orientation and gender identity is helping Addiction Medicine team members better identify and treat patients' health risks and needs.
- Collecting sensitive, personal information from patients can tell you a lot about their health risks and needs and help improve the quality of care for all Kaiser Permanente members.
- Creating a standardized process to collect information about patients’ sexual orientation, gender identity, and preferred pronouns.
Improving Access to Spinal Care
This specialty care team reduced evaluation wait times for Medicaid patients by 35% over 4 months after everyone got involved and they began scheduling phone appointments.
- Cutting evaluation wait times mean patients are connected to care sooner.
- Involving the entire team in the effort to administer patient evaluations.
Emails Lick Stamps and Envelopes
Sending emails — rather than letters — is cheaper, faster and more convenient for our patients.
- Email provides patients with timely information about their appointments and enhances our ability to deliver safe, affordable and convenient quality care and service.
- Tracking the number of paper envelopes mailed to patients
Stress-free Service Soothes the Sleepless
A patient-centered approach to delivering supplies gets the job done.
- Timely delivery of equipment and supplies enhances patient satisfaction and speeds the diagnosis and treatment of common sleep disorders.
- Mailing sleep therapy supplies to patients, centralizing supply distribution and purchasing software to track deliveries
Tracking Time Yields Results
Wait time for lab results fell by 56% after team members adjusted their workflow and schedules.
- Delivering timely results reduces patient anxiety and enables physicians to diagnose and treat patients sooner.
- Documenting and tracking the time to process tissue specimens
Fresh Perspective Spurs Workflow Innovation
Listening to the "voice of the customer" is the key to getting results.
- Timely delivery of medication is critical for patient care and eases anxiety and stress among staff.
- Shadowing hospital nurses to better understand their wants and needs.