Texas Health Resources - The Business of Healthcare

The Business of Health Care Report
The Patient & Family Journey (Part I) - March 2003

Click to listen to this taped broadcast.

I'm Doug Hawthorne, President and CEO of Texas Health Resources, with "The Business of Health Care Report" on News Radio 1080 KRLD.

Today, I want to talk to you about an exciting journey that Texas Health Resources has undertaken to improve the quality of the hospital experience for patients and families. It's called the Patient and Family Journey.

More than two years ago, THR recognized that successfully meeting the mission of improving the health of the communities we serve required careful planning for current and future needs. That planning included four distinct components:

Monitoring and anticipating market trends such as population growth,

Access to capital dollars to fuel the growth of the system to meet current and future demands for health care services,

Designing plans for remodeling and construction of system facilities to appropriately meet patient and family expectations

And improving the actual patient and family experience with the hospitals by focusing on improving processes and designing a truly patient-centered experience.

For THR, this was a golden moment not to be missed - a moment to create a Blueprint for Health Care Delivery unlike any other envisioned by a provider in North Texas.

Enthusiasm for the Patient and Family Journey has gained momentum with each passing day. More than 500 THR employees have been involved in research that focused on observing actual day-to-day business in the hospitals. Shadowing doctors and nurses. Interviewing patients and families. Evaluating the findings and brainstorming creative solutions to the problems identified in the journey.

Research uncovered specific steps in the journey - accessing a network of care, getting into the hospital, finding your way in the hospital, getting treatment, getting out of the hospital and accessing a network of care for follow-up treatment. Focusing on the journey itself, and always remembering that the patient and family are at the center of the journey, produced four universal intentions for everything THR does:

Value people's time and energy;

Treat the whole person, and actively understand, and respect individual needs;

Keep people informed throughout;

And give people a sense of control.

The goal of the Patient and Family Journey is to design the ideal patient experience. In my next report, I'll share with you the exciting innovations being developed and tested to create that ideal experience.

For Texas Health Resources and its family of hospitals - Harris Methodist Hospitals, Presbyterian Healthcare System and Arlington Memorial Hospital - I'm CEO Doug Hawthorne with "The Business of Health Care Report" on NewsRadio 1080 KRLD.

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