By Debby Clack

At Hunt Regional Medical Center in Northeast Texas, effective patient communication creates the foundation for delivering personalized care and achieving optimal outcomes.

Care team members at Hunt Regional aim to build trusted relationships with patients, and in doing so, there is no substitute for providing consistent communication across the care continuum. Effective communication between nurses and their patients can spark more engagement and understanding during a hospital stay and after discharge, which can improve patient experience, care plan compliance and outcomes.



To realize the many benefits of better patient communication and engagement, our 114-bed hospital combined two best practices: nurse leader rounding during a hospital stay, and follow-up calls 24-72 hours after patient discharge. While many hospitals conduct nurse leader rounds and make follow-up calls, Hunt Regional is using technology to optimize both practices. By connecting the patient touch points with technology, our nurses can capture patient voice in real time and track patient experience at important points along the way.

The human-centered technology makes the two practices more meaningful than checking a box that a task was completed. Prior to hardwiring the rounding process with a mobile communication solution, Hunt Regional used a paper-based process, which made it difficult to track patient comments and follow up on requests in a timely manner. Paper-based rounding also was not conducive to monitoring trends, identifying potential gaps in processes, or reporting performance metrics.

Solving the paper-based problem
The Hunt Regional management team wanted a solution to simplify and standardize the rounding process. They also wanted a tool to extend patient engagement beyond the four walls of the hospital to create a seamless experience of care and help reduce readmissions by improving care plan compliance.

Hunt Regional’s decision on which technology to implement was not a difficult one. As a long-time customer of Vocera, hospital clinicians have used the company’s communication technology for many years to collaborate. So, when the leadership team learned about Vocera Rounds and Vocera Care Calls, we agreed that the solutions together could meet our patient engagement and experience goals.

Two solutions working together
Three designated nurses, equipped with the rounding application on an iPad, conduct rounds throughout five units. They talk with patients to identify their personal goals, assess their needs, determine readmission risks, and understand details of nurse call requests. After performing daily rounds and capturing patient feedback in the app, they lead central huddle board discussions to help team members understand common trends discovered through patient comments and collaborate on ways to make immediate improvements.

Separately, the same three nurses who conduct patient rounds during the hospital stay also make follow-up calls to patients after discharge to discuss care plans. For patients, it’s reassuring to hear a familiar voice on the phone from someone who understands their entire care experience, and is now seeking to help them with their aftercare.

With the care calls solution, Hunt Regional nurses have access to follow-up scripts, as well as the patients’ verbatim feedback shared during nurse leader rounding. They are able to have meaningful conversations with patients about care plans, doctor’s appointments, and medications. Furthermore, the nurses can leverage the rounding information, which is accessible via the care calls app, to address potential risks identified, discuss any questions the patients may have had during their hospital stays, provide a resolution if needed, and close the communication loop.

The results
Over the course of 18 months, Hunt Regional Medical Center experienced the following patient and family engagement through its new technology solution:

• Completed nearly 22,000 patient-centered rounds and 13,000 post discharge calls
• Engaged with more than 21,000 patients and families through rounds and calls
• Received over 200,000 data points from patients and family members through rounds and calls to drive improvements and celebration
• Identified 70 issues for service recovery

Additionally, Hunt Regional saw a significant increase in two key measures from the Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HCAHPS) survey. HCAHPS is a standardized survey of hospital patients that captures patients' unique perspectives on hospital care in order to provide the public with comparable information on hospital quality. Between 2014 and 2017:
• Overall rating score increased 13 percent – from 66.5 percent to 74.9 percent
• Likelihood to recommend score increased 8 percent – from 65.5 percent to 70.8 percent

Building trusted relationships is a key to transforming the health care experience for patients, families, and staff. That can’t happen without open and frequent communication among each of those three groups. Thanks to our strong leadership, knowledgeable staff and patient-centered technology platform, Hunt Regional Medical Center is able to continuously improve the health care experience.

Debby Clack is the chief nursing officer at Hunt Regional Medical Center