Care to Share? Patients in Private Rooms Are More Likely to Recommend a Hospital to Others.

A patient's likelihood to recommend a hospital is used to assess the quality of their experience. This study investigated whether room type influences patients' likelihood to recommend Stanford Health Care using Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems survey data from November 2018 to February 2021 (n = 10,703). The percentage of patients who gave the top response was calculated as a top box score, and the effects of room type, service line, and the COVID-19 pandemic were represented as odds ratios (ORs). Patients in private rooms were more likely to recommend than patients in semi-private rooms (aOR: 1.32; 95% CI: 1.16-1.51; 86% vs 79%, p < .001), and service lines with only private rooms had the greatest increases in odds of a top response. The new hospital had significantly higher top box scores than the original hospital (87% vs 84%, p < .001), indicating that room type and hospital environment impact patients' likelihood to recommend.

Developing a multi-departmental residency communication coaching program.

Background: Local needs assessments in our institution's surgery and neurology residency programs identified barriers to effective communication, such as no shared communication framework and limited feedback on nontechnical clinical skills. Residents identified faculty-led coaching as a desired educational intervention to improve communication skills. Three university departments (Surgery, Neurology, and Pediatrics) and health-care system leaders collaborated closely to develop an innovative communication coaching initiative generalizable to other residency programs. Innovation: Coaching program development involved several layers of collaboration between health-care system leaders, faculty educators, and departmental communication champions. The efforts included: (1) creating and delivering communication skills training to faculty and residents; (2) hosting frequent meetings among various stakeholders to develop program strategy, discuss opportunities and learnings, and engage other medical educators interested in coaching; (3) obtaining funding to implement the coaching initiative; (4) selecting coaches and providing salary and training support. Evaluation: A multi-phased mixed-methods study utilized online surveys and virtual semi-structured interviews to assess the program's quality and impact on the communication culture and the satisfaction and communication skills of residents. Quantitative and qualitative data have been integrated during data collection and analysis using embedding, building, and merging strategies. Discussion and Implications: Establishing a multi-departmental coaching program may be feasible and can be adapted by other programs if similar resources and focus are present. We found that stakeholders' buy-in, financial support, protected faculty time, flexible approach, and rigorous evaluation are crucial factors in successfully implementing and sustaining such an initiative.