You can spot them from afar, in their sky-blue cardigans, making their rounds through Miriam Hospital, doing little nice things that can’t compare, in scale, to the life-saving work of doctors and nurses – but that make patients’ days just a little brighter.
Maybe it’s just a quick hello and a few minutes’ chat; it gets lonely and dull, lying in a strange bed all day, and a friendly young face in the room breaks up the monotony. Or maybe they’ll clean your reading glasses, or bring you a magazine from the gift shop.
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They’re the “patient satisfaction squad,” seven women and two men whose sole task is to make patients’ stay at Miriam as pleasant as possible. Most are college students preparing for careers in health care; all were hand-picked from among applicants for various summer jobs.
Matthew Blade, Miriam’s director of patient satisfaction, created the program this spring after patient surveys found Miriam ranked well on most factors, but not on efforts to offset the inconvenience of being hospitalized, or to meet patients’ spiritual and emotional needs.
Miriam has long taken pride in its nurses, whose skill, caring and leadership have earned the hospital a “Magnet” designation from the American Nurses Association. But Blade knew nurses are often too busy with clinical work to sit and chat or run errands.
Blade decided to test a new concept: a dedicated patient satisfaction team. It’s not something he’s seen done elsewhere – many hospitals have patient advocates who handle problems, but not staffers to visit patients daily.
For the interns, on the other hand, it was a chance to immerse themselves in a world to which most people their age have no exposure, to learn from professionals, and to develop interpersonal skills they could use in their future careers.
“I’m going to be dealing with patients on a regular basis,” said Chris Frushon, a graduate nutrition student at Marywood University in Pennsylvania. “I figured this was a good opportunity to work on my bedside manner.”
They started June 6 with a week of training in service delivery, infection control, safety and security, and diversity and sexual-harassment issues. Then Blade assigned them to nursing units on inpatient medical-surgical floors and the emergency room.
They come in every day at 11:30 a.m., in rotating shifts so the weekends are covered. They start with a half-hour group meeting with Blade to discuss their experiences. Then they head out to visit the patients, one by one, and see how they can help them.
On its face, it’s easy work: walk around and be friendly. But going into a stranger’s room can be daunting, especially when the person is very sick, maybe in pain, or heavily sedated.
For starters, you need courage. “You have to be confident to go into a room by yourself and talk to someone,” said Kristina Prachanronarong, a pre-med student at Brown University. “I was a little shy when I came here, but then I realized shy wasn’t going to cut it.”
It helps to have good intuition: “You can tell if they want you, or if they’re in too much pain,” said Rosa Morales, who plans to become a certified nursing assistant. “But you just let them know you’re around if they need you.”
And it takes creativity and initiative: buying sports-themed balloons and a card, as Morales did for a man hospitalized on his birthday, or giving a patient a manicure, as Kimberly Courtemanche, a nursing student at the Community College of Rhode Island, did.
Sometimes a small effort transforms a patient’s experience. Ronald Kirwin, 66, drove himself to the hospital but left his eyeglasses in the car. He lay in his room for several hours, bored with the TV, but nobody could get the glasses for him.
As soon as Frushon found out, he rushed to the parking lot and brought back the glasses – several pairs of them. He even gave them a good wash.
“He made my day,” said Kirwin. “It made a big difference for me. I was ready to walk out myself.” Before Kirwin was discharged, Frushon also took a moment to type up a card with all his prescription information, just like his daughter, now in Florida, had done before.
Down the hall, the family of Ronald Gibbons, 75, had gathered in his room for what they knew would be his last few days. Gibbons was diagnosed with leukemia in December, battled with it for months, and came in with pneumonia in late July. Frushon watched the progression from acute care to hospice, and supported Gibbons’ children as they set out to make the most of the time they had by celebrating all the holidays and special occasions with their father.
On his “birthday,” the whole group came in to sing. On “Halloween,” some of the girls painted their faces, and Frushon brought Gibbons candy for trick-or-treaters. On “New Year’s Eve,” the whole team gave him a card. In between, Frushon tended to the family’s needs – coffee, cookies, bottled water – and talked with Gibbons.
The program ends Aug. 31, but Blade said he plans to contact area colleges to try to set up a formal internship program with them, for college credit. “I think it would work very well.”
Sue Korber, the nurse manager on Frushon’s floor, said the nurses certainly want the program to continue, because they’ve found it “extremely helpful.”
“Nurses take it very seriously that patients are in crisis when they come in,” Korber said.
“They’re in physical crisis; they’re in emotional crisis; they’re distraught. And there are things nurses want to do to provide emotional comfort, but sometimes you don’t get a chance, if you’re checking IDs and making sure the right patient gets the right tests.”
The interns not only help the nurses make the patients more comfortable, Korber said, but they have time to keep people company – like when Frushon escorts patients when they go for tests, and waits with them for as long as it takes.
“The nurse could never be off the floor 15 minutes to do that,” Korber said. They’re able to do the things the nurses aren’t physically able to do. It’s a great partnership, and I think the patients have responded phenomenally to this.”
