Navigating the Health System

Stan and Clarence chat with Melissa Winger - author of Who Cares? The Real Patient Experience - about the complexities and challenges of navigating the health care system.

Melissa Winger - a devoted public health practitioner - has an extensive background in quality improvement and health systems. Melissa serves as a Quality Improvement Specialist for UnitedHealth Group and as a Health Care Home Site Surveyor for the Minnesota Department of Health. In addition, Melissa serves on the American Academy of Pediatrics National Social Determinants Health Board, the National Technical Advisory Committee on Screening Tools, the Family Partnerships Executive Committee, the National Prehospital Pediatric Readiness Committee with the Department of Health and Human Services, and more.

Listen along as Melissa details the challenges of the health care system and introduces her new book Who Cares? The Real Patient Experience - depicting our broken health care system through the realities a teen mom and her son with complex medical needs have faced over two decades. Purchase the book at your favorite book retailer.

Join the conversation at healthchatterpodcast.com

Brought to you in support of Hue-MAN, who is Creating Healthy Communities through Innovative Partnerships. More about their work can be found at http://huemanpartnership.org/

Research

• Navigating the healthcare system 

• Patient experience → “encompasses the range of interactions that patients have with the healthcare system, including their care from health plans, and from doctors, nurses, and staff in hospitals, physician practices, and other healthcare facilities” 
• Evidence suggests that positive patient experience is associated with improved healthcare processes and outcomes 
• “The patient experience is now globally recognized as an independent dimension of health-care quality” 
• 2021 Accenture data revealed that only 33% of patients (1,800 surveyed) reported never having a bad healthcare-related experience 
• A 2022 Forbes article reported that 60% of Americans have had an “outright” negative healthcare experience 

• Issues in navigating the healthcare system 

• Lack of standardized definition for patient experience 
• “A clearer understanding of the patient experience will assist clinicians in improving that experience at the point of care, guide further research into the topic, and provide clear directions for quality improvement efforts and health-care policies.” 
• Lack of empathy and trust within provider/patient relationships 
• Cost-related care access barriers
• Use and misuse of patient feedback (i.e. patient satisfaction surveys)
• A 2015 Atlantic article stated: “a misguided attempt to improve healthcare has led some hospitals to focus on making people happy, rather than making them well.” 
• “Longer wait times, access issues, short-staffed units causing delayed responsiveness all contribute to people not feeling listened to, communicated to, treated with respect.” (Forbes 2022 article) 
• “Well-documented burnout among nurses and doctors, and associated staffing shortages, appear to be taking their toll on the patient experience—and influencing consumer behavior.” (Forbes 2022 article)

• What to do in an emergency

• Contact someone you trust 

• How to resolve patient issues & concerns 

• Increase empathy related to provider/patient relationships and interactions
• Healthcare providers need to focus on communication
• “Consumer experience is more than technology” (Harvard Business Review 2021 article) 

The Patient Experience → Oben P. Understanding the Patient Experience: A Conceptual Framework. J Patient Exp. 2020 Dec;7(6):906-910. doi: 10.1177/2374373520951672. Epub 2020 Aug 31. PMID: 33457518; PMCID: PMC7786717.

Sources 

• https://www.linkedin.com/in/mwinger/
• https://www.ahrq.gov/cahps/about-cahps/patient-experience/index.html
• https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7786717/
• https://patientengagementhit.com/news/2-in-3-healthcare-consumers-report-bad-patient-experience
• https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6351417/
• https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2015/04/the-problem-with-satisfied-patients/390684/
• https://www.forbes.com/sites/debgordon/2022/11/28/60-of-americans-have-had-a-recent-bad-healthcare-experience-new-survey-shows/?sh=79241da52adf
• https://hbr.org/2021/11/5-principles-to-improve-the-patient-experience