How Reid Transformed Culture and Raised HCAHPS

Kay Cartwright, CNO of Reid Hospital
Richard Strand, Ph.D., President of Customer Focus
Steve Fugate, VP of Customer Focus

In 2008, Reid Hospital in Richmond, Indiana built a dream hospital near its existing facility. It featured all private rooms, on-demand TVs, Zen healing gardens, behind-the-scenes transport, gourmet food, in-room full-menu dining, noise-free wireless networks, art galleries, live piano music, soaring glass walls and state-of-the-art surgical suites with hyperbaric recovery chambers. The problem: Patient satisfaction scores (HCAHPS) remained low. Reid then implemented The Patient’s VOICE® program to enable its directors and managers to train, coach and reinforce its 2,000 employees’ abilities to ask for, listen and respond to each Patient’s VOICE (Values, Opinions, Information, Concerns, Emotions) and to express their VOICE. The result: True employee empowerment and patient collaboration, crumbled functional silos and status barriers and overall HCAHPS scores climbing 40 points sustained now for 18 months. Reid’s CNO and Customer Focus’ president, along with videos of ten Reid leaders, document the cultural transformation, key success factors and how hospital leaders can implement a proven turnkey non-consultant-dependent housewide service learning program in six months that embeds a fully operational performance management system based on universal healthcare communication and collaboration standards.