Meeting Patients' Needs: Quality Care in a Changing Environment

Recent surveys of patients in New York and Cleveland, among other cities, indicate that there is substantial room for improvement in meeting patients' needs and preferences, particularly in the areas of emotional support, coordination of care, discharge preparation, and the involvement of family and friends. Hospitals are using a variety of techniques to improve patient care and organizational efficiency in this challenging environment. One prominent approach, reengineering, offers a means by which hospitals can integrate highly specialized departmental structures and functions by focusing on interdisciplinary teamwork and organizing the delivery of care around patients. Key elements of successful hospital reengineering efforts have included: - the involvement and commitment of senior management and other key stakeholders, particularly physicians, nurses, and union representatives; - investment in staff training and retraining, and the redesign of staff evaluation and compensation systems; - timely, unit-specific measures of patient satisfaction and the clinical quality of care; - consistent and frequent internal communication between staff and leadership; and - treatment that emphasizes communication among caregivers, patients, and their family members. Several basic issues need to be addressed if hospitals are to offer technically sophisticated medical care that is also responsive to their patients' personal needs, including: - variations among patients regarding the amount of information they want and need, and the amount of involvement they want in their care; - the means by which patients will get information about their medical care, and who will provide any additional support that may be needed by non-English-speaking or socioeconomically disadvantaged patients; and - the specific changes in medical practice and hospital processes that will promote the involvement of patients in their care.