Podcast: Tips for Patient Engagement From Chief Physician Executive of WellSpan Health

There are different approaches to patient engagement in the inpatient and outpatient settings.

Patient engagement as WellSpan Health includes a personal touch and digital tools, the chief physician executive of the health system says in a HealthLeaders podcast.

Patient engagement is an essential element of generating a positive patient experience. It also is crucial in involving patients in their care, which helps to achieve good clinical outcomes.

As part of the podcast, Anthony Aquilina, DO, executive vice president and chief physician executive at WellSpan, discusses patient engagement in the inpatient and outpatient settings.

Inpatient engagement

In the inpatient setting, patient engagement is pivotal to putting patients at ease, according to Aquilina.

"When you are a hospital patient, it can be one of the most anxiety-producing times of your life," he says. "You are there hoping and praying that the people who have your life in their hands are going to do the right thing for you."

The primary components of patient engagement in the inpatient setting are compassion and respect, and all members of the care team need to treat patients accordingly, Aquilina says.

"An inpatient can see as many as three or more people every hour they are laying in a hospital bed. Almost half of them are nurses, but there are also doctors," he says. "It is important that we focus on everybody who is encountering the patient and make sure they understand the basics about how to make the patient feel comfortable and to make sure the patient feels that the team is working together in their best interest."

A digital tool that the health system is using for patient engagement in the inpatient setting is called MyWellSpan Bedside, which is part of the MyChart experience in the Epic electronic medical record.

"MyWellSpan Bedside is an inpatient version of MyChart," Aquilina says. "It allows patients to engage and to be informed as well as to be empowered in their hospital-based care. They can see things such as upcoming tests, recent results, and other content about their care. It allows them to be digitally engaged."

The health system is also engaging patients through virtual nursing.

"The way this works is there is a nurse sitting in front of a monitor with the ability to view as many as six patients," Aquilina says. "His or her role is to supplement the care delivered by the bedside nurses. This nurse keeps an eye on the patient in the bed and communicates with them."

Virtual nursing allows early identification of potential risks such as falls, and it also improves patient education, transitions of care, and the discharge process, according to Aquilina.

"Virtual nurses can pop into a patient's room through a video feed and engage the patient as well as family members when they are visiting," he says.

Anthony Aquilina, DO, is executive vice president and chief physician executive at WellSpan Health. Photo courtesy of WellSpan Health.

Outpatient engagement

In the outpatient setting, patient engagement is more provider driven, so WellSpan has worked with physicians and advanced practice providers to mximize their patient engagement skills and focus on compassion and respect for all patients, Aquilina says.

The health system understands from the patient's viewpoint that their ambulatory care is not just a patient visit, according to Aquilina.

"It starts when a patient thinks about the need or desire to get care, then continues through the visit and the after care," he says. "We make sure that their instructions after a visit, follow-up after a visit, or tests after a visit are all coordinated."

In the outpatient setting, nurse navigators play an important role in patient engagement at WellSpan for both the pre-visit part of care and the after-visit part, according to Aquilina.

"For the pre-visit part of outpatient care, we started a program for nurse navigation that allows patients who have uncertainty about how to access care to talk with a real human being," he says. "The nurse navigator is trained to understand the patient's personalized needs and get them to the right place. The right place is not always an office visit. Sometimes, it could be a virtual visit. Sometimes, it is urgent care. Occasionally, it is an emergency room visit."

After outpatient visits, nurse navigators focus on patients with acute needs, according to Aquilina.

"For after-visit care, we are using our nurse navigators to make sure our highest risk patients are getting the care they need and the follow-up they need," he says.

To hear the podcast, click here.