Baystate Health to Offer Conference on the Patient Experience
SPRINGFIELD — As hospitals around the country focus their efforts on developing a variety of strategies to improve the patient experience, Baystate Health will sponsor a day-long conference, “The Patient Experience: Explore, Engage, Excel,” on Oct. 6 at the Log Cabin Banquet and Meeting House in Holyoke.
Keynote speaker Brian Boyle — who turned tragedy into triumph after a horrific car accident nearly cost him his life — has had his inspirational story told on NBC’s Today Show, ESPN, and other television outlets around the world. He will talk about his patient experience, which included 14 operations and two months in a coma in an intensive-care unit, followed by weeks in the hospital and later at a rehabilitation center learning to walk again.
On July 4, 2004, then-18-year-old Boyle of Welcome, Md., was driving home from swim practice. At one intersection, a speeding dumptruck plowed into his Camaro, totaling the vehicle. He suffered massive internal injuries and lost 60{06cf2b9696b159f874511d23dbc893eb1ac83014175ed30550cfff22781411e5} of his blood. Doctors had to jump-start his heart eight separate times during surgery. In 2007, Boyle staged what many consider to be one of the greatest comebacks in sports history, when he crossed the finish line at the Hawaii Ironman just three years after leaving the intensive-care unit.
The one-day program is designed for all area healthcare providers and employees, healthcare administrators, and Patient and Family Advisory Council members. Goals include assisting participants in identifying the key influences that shape patients’ perceptions of their care, discovering how healthcare professionals and Patient and Family Advisory Councils can partner to create and strengthen a culture of patient- and family-centered care, describing how strategies such as appreciative inquiry can foster an organization’s journey towards patient-centered excellence, and assessing whether patient-satisfaction data truly measures a healthcare provider’s performance.
Additional sessions offered by Baystate professionals during the day include “Mindfulness and You Matter,” “Creating a Framework for Organizational Improvement,” “Methodology Matters: How Patient Survey Data Drives Performance,” “Engaging Front Line Staff: One Organization’s Journey,” “The Influence of Patient and Family Advisory Councils,” and “Stories Matter.” Course credits are available for physicians, nurses, psychologists, and mental-health counselors.
Registration — including continental breakfast, refreshment breaks, and lunch (there is no charge to park) — is $130 online at www.learn.bhs.org. When online, choose ‘calendar,’ then select the course and add it to your shopping cart, then follow the registration and credit-card payment instructions. For additional information, or to register by mail, e-mail joanna.donahue@baystatehealth.org or call (413) 322-4242.