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The Exec: Inova Health System Launches Ambitious Patient Care Initiative

Analysis  |  By Christopher Cheney  
   October 30, 2024

The InovaCare initiative features several elements, including enhancing connections with patients, generating a positive patient experience, and creating care pathways for clinical conditions.

Inova Health System has launched an ambitious initiative to transform how patients connect with the organization as well as establish care pathways for clinical conditions, according to John Moynihan, MD, president and chief of clinical enterprise at the health system.

Moynihan is also president of Inova Surgical Services, with oversight responsibilities for the service line across all five Inova hospitals. His prior leadership experience includes serving as chair of the Department of Surgery at Inova Fairfax Medical Campus.

One of Moynihan's top responsibilities is helping to implement the InovaCare initiative at Inova Health System, which Moynihan hopes will improve the ability of patients to access the health system.

"We want care to be more coordinated and more seamless for patients," Moynihan says. "By embracing evidence-based practice of medicine among our specialties and for particular clinical conditions, we believe that we can get outstanding results in our outcomes."

Improving patient experience is a key element of the InovaCare initiative, with an emphasis on the entire patient journey.

"First and foremost," Moynihan says, "we can never forget that in any encounter, we need to be able to have a patient receive our full attention and have the respect of whoever is caring for them."

To boost patient experience in the inpatient setting, Inova Health System has embraced "trio rounding," where the attending physician, the bedside nurse, and the patient round as a unit.

"It reinforces the confidence level that a patient has that his or her entire team understands the patient's goals and the decisions that will be made clinically," Moynihan says. "That makes sure the patient feels they are part of the conversation."

Listening to the patient is critical to improving patient experience, according to Moynihan.

"One of the questions we ask all of our patients is, 'what matters most to you?'" Moynihan says. "That makes the patient feel they are part of the decision-making process, and they can influence the direction of their care."

Respecting patients is essential to generating a positive patient experience in the inpatient and outpatient settings, Moynihan explains.

"We must respect the time that a patient commits to seeing us in the ambulatory setting, respect the schedule, and devote time to meeting with the patient face-to-face," Moynihan says. "Even if it is a telehealth visit, we want our providers to be focused on the patient's needs at the time of the visit."

The InovaCare initiative has multiple channels for communication with patients, and each patient can access the health system differently.

"For some patients, it may be an enhanced digital connection. For others, it might be a phone call," Moynihan says. "Some patients want to connect through email or texting. We must explore all of those options to meet our patients' needs."

Moynihan explains that seeking out patient opinions is another goal of the InovaCare initiative.

"A lot of what we do is going to need to include our patients' opinions to provide us with direction on how we improve the relationship with patients," Moynihan says. "The more we can understand the patients we serve today, the more successful we will be over the long term in designing efficient and patient-focused care models."

John Moynihan, MD, is president and chief of clinical enterprise at Inova Health System. Photo courtesy of Inova Health System.

Care pathways and care models

Establishing care pathways and care models for clinical conditions is a primary goal of the InovaCare initiative.

"We want to provide care that is evidence-based, and that will be dictated by the particular discipline that the patient is looking for care within," Moynihan says. "Whether it is back pain, heart failure, a breast condition, or lung nodule, each of those conditions will have evidence-based care models that allow for us to take care of the patient with evidence-based medicine."

Having care pathways and care models, which will be incorporated into the health system's electronic medical record, will reduce variation in clinical care. Moynihan hopes that standardizing care based on evidence and building care pathways into the electronic medical record will allow Inova to standardize care and measure the ability to deliver better outcomes.

"It has been well established that reducing variability in care achieves better outcomes," Moynihan says. "Reducing variability in care is also a more efficient way to care for patients."

To establish care pathways and care models, the health system brings together primary stakeholders at the start of the process.

"As we gather evidence that supports a particular pathway, we bring physicians, advanced practice providers, and nurses to the table and walk through what a care pathway might look like," Moynihan says. "We get their feedback, then come to a consensus about how we are going to execute a care pathway."

Christopher Cheney is the CMO editor at HealthLeaders.


KEY TAKEAWAYS

The InovaCare initiative includes offering multiple channels for patients to engage with the health system, including enhanced digital connections, phone calls, email, and texting.

To boost patient experience in the inpatient setting, Inova Health System has embraced "trio rounding," where the attending physician, the bedside nurse, and the patient round as a unit.

Listening to the patient is critical to improving patient experience, and Inova caregivers make sure to ask all patients what matters most to them.


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