PHRONESIS PROJECT
University of Virginia School of Medicine
Patient-Centered Care Observation Exercises SMD 2019
Due: October 23 2015
Exercise #1(a): Shadow your patient through a clinic visit, ED visit, or part of a day in the hospital
Ideally, your patient will have a clinic appointment before our next workshop on Friday, October 23. It can be a visit to UMA or a specialist. (If your patient does not have an appointment scheduled, please interview your patient about a recent clinic or hospital visit. There are some interview suggestions below.) The goal of this exercise is for you to see the clinic experience from your patient’s perspective and identify ways that we can improve that experience. Be sure to take notes!
Meet your patient at the hospital/clinic. Closely observe your patient’s experience, from the time s/he arrives (parking deck, drop off at clinic entrance, etc.) to the time s/he checks out. What things do you notice about their experience? What issues and interactions seem challenging for your patient? What aspects of the visit go well? What does your patient think about the way the clinic visit goes? You are encouraged to both observe and ask questions.
Write a summary of your observations, including a description of ways we can improve the clinic visit experience for our patients.
Exercise #1(b): Interview your patient about a recent clinic visit, ED visit, or stay in the hospital
If your patient does not have a clinic visit scheduled before October 23, please arrange a time to interview your patient about a recent hospital or clinic experience. A suggested question and prompts are below, but feel free to use your own questions. Pay attention to the specific language patients use to describe things and activities in the clinic. Are they the same words medical professionals use?
Opening question: I would like to learn more about what it’s like to be a patient at UVA, from your point-of-view. Think about a recent clinic or hospital experience that you had at UVA. Tell me about the visit or hospital stay – why were you there? Describe what happened during your visit/stay.
Prompts could include things like:
What happened next? Then what happened?
Could you describe that for me?
What was that like?
What else did you do? What else did they do?
Who did you talk with? What did you see?
How did that make you feel?
Does this happen every time you come to the clinic, or just this one time?
That sounds difficult. Is there something we could have done to make that easier?
What is your favorite part of a clinic visit? Your least favorite part?
Write a summary of your interview, including a description of ways we can improve the clinic visit experience for our patients.
Exercise #2: Spend 1 hour observing patients’ experiences in a hospital or clinical setting.
Choose a hospital or clinical setting – waiting area, etc. and station yourself there with paper and pen (or laptop). What do you observe about the setting and people’s behavior? If you were a patient in this setting, what would your experience be like? What do you overhear? Does anything seem confusing? How does the hospital or clinic set things up to make things easier, more comfortable, or supportive of health for patients and families? What things could be improved?
Write a summary of your observations, including a description of ways we can improve the clinic or hospital visit experience for our patients.
Be prepared to discuss your thoughts and observations with Gene Beyt and the group on October 23rd.