covid - Journey PX Patient Software

October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. There are over 3.8 million breast cancer survivors in the United States, and one in eight women will be diagnosed with breast cancer in their lifetime. Recently we were able to sit down and interview Dr. Erin Elder, whose specialty is breast surgical oncology and the diagnosis and treatment of breast cancer. Dr. Elder practices at Lieselotte Tansey Breast Center at Ochsner in New Orleans, LA. She is a member of the Society of Surgical Oncology and the American Society of Breast Surgeons.

According to statistics published by the National Breast Cancer Foundation, “On average, every 2 minutes a woman is diagnosed with breast cancer in the United States.” The organization also notes that in this year alone a staggering 43,550 women will die from breast cancer in the U.S. Dr. Elder explains, “A lot of breast cancer patients are healthy women, and this is probably the worst thing that has ever happened to them in their lives. They are great patients, very motivated to take on this challenge and it is a rewarding field to be in because the patients are so great.”

Detection

Early detection is key to helping patients who are diagnosed with breast cancer in order to have the best chance of success. Dr. Elder advised what to look for when it comes to detection. “A lot of patients have no symptoms, and their breast cancers are found just based on their screening mammogram. Some patients do have symptoms, usually, that is a palpable mass or a change in the thickness of their breasts or some changes to the skin. Some patients do have pain, but that's actually fairly rare,” she said. One way patients can be proactive about their health is to get regular mammograms. Dr. Elder advised patients to follow the national guidelines, which encourage women to get regular mammograms at the age of 40. “I usually see patients getting mammograms once a year, starting at age 40. Patients younger than 40 sometimes are recommended for screening mammograms or even MRIs usually based on individual risk factors. Primary care doctors will often use a special calculator that gives patients a risk score if they start seeing risk factors like multiple family members with breast cancer or other factors. If a patient's found to have a greater than the lifetime risk of 20% for breast cancer, they often can start mammograms at 30 and also can start MRIs at 25. So, there are some options out there if you feel like you are at elevated risk. It might be worth asking your primary care doctor if they could calculate a risk score for you to see if you have fallen in that category of greater than 20%,” she said. Dr. Elder stated that while the national average risk is around 12%, a lot of insurance companies will cover additional early screening if the patient’s risk factor is greater than 20%. Sometimes patients also get genetic testing and Dr. Elder revealed that the price for those tests has come down significantly over the last few years, opening more availability for patients to receive them and more insurance to cover the cost.
Lastly, while men do not need to get regular mammograms, they should note that while breast cancer mainly affects women, men are also at risk for breast cancer. According to the American Cancer Society, more than 2,700 men are diagnosed with breast cancer each year and approximately 530 men die from the disease.

What to Ask Your Doctor

Dr. Elder has some advice for those who have been diagnosed with breast cancer. “I think the main thing to consider with breast cancer is the importance of understanding your individual tumor characteristics and how that impacts your outcomes, and also your choices in treatment,” she said. “I think it's just important for patients to understand their particular cancer since it is so individualized,” she continued.
Dr. Elder emphasized that patients should not focus too much on the stage of their cancer. “I feel like people focus too much on what stage their cancer is. Luckily, throughout most of the stages of breast cancer, patients do very well and have high survival rates. I don't want patients to get bogged down on the stage because even if they are at a slightly higher stage, they still have a great chance of doing well,” she said.

Holistic Care/ Education

Dr. Elder supports a comprehensive approach to patient care, an approach supported by the patient experience solutions offered by Journey PX. These solutions offer patients a more holistic approach to healing while they're in the hospital. “When patients get cancer diagnoses, they often have a lot of anxiety, which is very understandable. It’s helpful for them to have these tools to help them cope.

Tools such as the Journey PX solution My Stay, which offers patients calming videos for relaxation and meditation, as well as an extensive library of patient education videos which allows patients to access the education, they need in order to become more informed about their condition and proactive about their care. Dr Elder explained why this is so helpful for breast cancer patients. “A lot of patients are interested in what they can do personally to help with their cancer. I think a lot of people feel a lack of control over their bodies when they get diagnosed. Therefore, a lot of people are asking questions such as: What should I eat? What should I do? Is there anything I can do other than what the doctors recommend that would help me? So, I think a lot of patients are interested in holistic approaches, or what we call integrative health solutions. So definitely if a patient was diagnosed with cancer, it would be helpful to have these types of resources,” she said.

Other valuable tools offer cancer patients peace of mind by providing them with information such as the Journey PX solution My Day Today, which is a digital whiteboard that integrates with the hospital’s EMR and provides accurate health information to patients and their families in real time. Lastly, patients can obtain the emotional support they need by connecting with loved ones virtually in their hospital room with Journey PX’s Connect solution. All of these tools provide patients with a holistic approach to care that really supports their well-being, and in turn, their recovery.

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The in-room patient experience technology solutions such as those offered by Journey PX are helpful in a variety of other ways as certain scenarios come about for breast cancer patients that require special support. Dr. Elder explained these. “Sometimes patients don't have the resources to get their screening mammograms, and sometimes they do show up with a mass at the Emergency Department. It’s hard for those patients because they might not be seeing a specialist at that time. So, they can really get some of that diagnostic information and support from these resources. I also think using this type of system is helpful because people learn in different ways. I find a lot of times in appointments with patients it takes about an hour, and they get all this information, and it is hard for them to absorb it. ” she said. It might be helpful to be able to read it or to have something that they can watch at their own pace so that they can get information in a different way that may be better suited to their learning style,” she said.

A system like Journey PX also supports the interoperability of hospital care teams, which allows for lean clinical workflows, better communication, and a better patient experience. Nurses can support the patient by assigning them an education that is particular to their surgery. The My Stay solution offers a video on mastectomy education after every mastectomy, which gives the patient the ability to watch that education over and over if they would like. Journey PX solutions also support the patient’s families by providing them with education and information as well.

You can hear more from Dr. Elder about breast cancer awareness, including some of the latest technologies that are being used to combat the disease in our latest PX Space podcast interview. View more information on Breast Cancer Awareness month and support the cause on the Susan G. Komen website.

Listen to the full interview on the PX Space podcast available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Amazon Music.

Hospital workplace violence has been a problem in the healthcare industry for decades, but the COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated the situation. The VP of Clinical Excellence at MDM Healthcare, Linda Robinson, MSN, BSN, RN has been an advocate for the issue of hospital workplace violence throughout her career. She consulted with other state nursing organizations on healthcare workplace violence legislation. She co-authored a published national workplace violence research study for the National Emergency Nurses Association. Also, she has also been named an ANCC Magnet exemplar, which was obtained for workplace safety violence prevention work. These are just some of her many achievements as they relate to this topic. Robinson sat down with us for an interview to discuss the issue and suggest ways hospitals could combat the problem and move forward to a safer, healthier hospital environment. “I worked in the Emergency Department for many years, and I also worked in the ICU prior to that. Healthcare safety and security really became something that I was faced with early on. When I went to the emergency department, I was amazed at how violent it was, and so I have really dedicated a lot of my career to addressing the issue,” she said.

Incidents of workplace violence against healthcare workers had been on the rise before the pandemic. A report published by the U.S. The Bureau of Labor in 2018 stated that the issue was of growing concern in the industry and that healthcare workers were “ five times more likely to experience workplace violence than employees in all other industries.” This was the state of conditions leading up to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in March of 2020. Robinson explained that the stressful working conditions at hospitals were intensified by the pandemic, which ultimately resulted in more verbal, and even physical abuse of healthcare workers. “I noticed the problem when I started at the Emergency Department in 2003, but since COVID, it seems to have just really gotten much worse. A lot of that has been caused by fear of the disease, and stress from the quarantine measures,” Robinson said. Staggering statistics continue to be reported relating to this issue. A recent article published by healthcare research group Press Ganey, revealed more than two nursing personnel were assaulted every hour in the second quarter of 2022. That equates to roughly 57 assaults per day, 1,739 assaults per month, and 5,217 assaults per quarter.

of nurses reported experiencing physical violence (Website)

Robinson noted that hospital violence comes in a variety of forms, all of which are dangerous. “Violence is not always physical. If you have apathy towards verbal abuse you create an environment that is conducive to the escalation of that verbal abuse to physical assault,” she said. Another aspect of the problem is the underreporting of incidents by healthcare workers. In many cases, nurses don't even report incidents of violence. According to the U.S. Department of Labor, workplace violence is a recognized hazard in the healthcare industry, and unfortunately, many more incidents probably go unreported. “Studies show us that 30% of nurses do not report incidents of workplace violence. Nurses believe it’s part of the job. In a lot of organizations reporting is voluntary, so there's a lack of reporting policy,” said Robinson.
Robinson stressed the need for hospital leadership to take action. “If you're in a leadership position where you can advocate for nursing and hospital safety, it is imperative that you do that,” she said. “If a nurse cannot give care or leaves nursing because of an injury or because they don't feel safe, then we're losing good nurses,” she continued.

Many advocates in the industry including Robinson point out that there are no federal laws protecting healthcare workers from this type of violence, and that part of solving the issue is a legislative response. A recent report published by the American Hospital Association (AHA) states, “Hospitals, health systems and their employees have expressed a strong interest in the enactment of a federal law that would protect health care workers from violence and intimidation, just as current federal law protects airline and airport workers. Congress should enact the Safety from Violence for Healthcare Employees (SAVE) Act, which provides protections similar to those that exist for flight crews, flight attendants and airport workers.” In addition to a legislative response, a Sentinel Event Alert, which was revised since the COVID pandemic, was published by the Joint Commission. It created standards for a framework to guide hospitals and critical access hospitals in dealing with violence.

Robinson drew on her expertise as a longtime advocate for the issue and explained that there are several things that hospitals can do to establish safer working environments. “Hospitals need to talk to their staff and give them a seat at the table so that they can be honest about what's happening. Safety is everyone's first priority, and there should be a zero-tolerance policy for violence,” she said. It's very important that we take it seriously and we intervene, and we offer services to staff who have gone through workplace violence incidents,” she continued. Robinson also suggested that hospitals focus on teaching staff how to identify and prevent dangerous conditions in the early stages before the violence escalates and injuries occur. She also suggested hospitals analyze the conditions that contributed to violent incidents after they occur, implement a behavioral emergency response team, educate workers on de-escalation techniques., and invest in security infrastructure.

The Role of Technology and How MDM Healthcare Can Help

Robinson suggested that the innovative use of technology could help improve conditions in the hospital environment, which would also help to reduce violent incidents. “I think that's where MDM comes in and I'll tell you that's one of the reasons I’m there. I'm passionate about patient and family-centered care, and patient experience, but again, I am a passionate advocate for nursing. It's so exciting to be working with technology that can really help give people a better quality of care,” she said.
Technology helps nurses work more efficiently, which is even more beneficial in light of the current nursing shortage. “Nurses can't be everything to everybody. They can't be in that room all the time, they have a number of patients to care for. When you think of patient engagement technology, it provides a lot of information in that room that really helps the patient not have to call out to their nurse constantly,” said Robinson.

Information sharing also keeps patients and families calm by providing them peace of mind. Vital health data can be shared in real-time using Journey PX’s digital whiteboard solution, My Day Today. “The digital whiteboard has a patient’s daily plan of care, everything that's going to happen, and many other important answers to patients' questions. On that digital whiteboard, but then also within that system, there is a whole lot of information about the hospital,” said Robinson. A variety of questions are answered by the patient engagement technology, the technology also allows patients to access services such as meals, housekeeping and entertainment. “It keeps tension down and fosters a more positive work environment, as patients don’t need to call their nurse for everything they need,” Robinson noted. This technology also helps calm the confusion and frustration that can sometimes be felt by a patient's family and care partners as it also keeps them informed.

The sharing of vital information is only one of many technology solutions used in Journey PX, which helps cultivate a more tranquil hospital environment. “Another thing I would mention are the distraction pieces that are available in Journey PX solution My Stay, This solution includes access to calming videos on demand to help patients relax, and a vast library of Hollywood and patient education videos to help keep patients entertained,” said Robinson. Journey PX also allows the hospital to send out vital safety messages to each patient when an emergency takes place, such as a hurricane, tornado, or other crisis. In addition, the technology provides a reminder for patients when visiting hours are coming to a close so they can obtain a visitor’s badge for essential family members if needed. Robinson knows that technology can make a difference in creating a safer environment at hospitals. “Those prompts can go out to every patient at the facility, really transforming the environment,” she said. Keeping patients connected with loved ones and care providers virtually is another technology solution that helps create a more pleasant hospital environment. The Journey PX Connect platform enables video calling for patients, care teams and families. This solution is another example of how technology can help in decreasing a patient's fear and frustrations while in the hospital. “The ability to do that innovatively with a patient engagement technology solution is pretty endless. At Journey PX we ask hospital organizations to provide us with their key quality and safety issues they want to address, and we brainstorm with them and design the solution to meet their needs and to meet their patients and their staff's needs,” Robinson stated.

The issue of hospital workplace violence is complex and combating the problem requires a variety of actions be taken, such as those outlined above. At MDM Healthcare, we are proud to know our technology solutions can help be a part of a comprehensive strategy to address the problem. For Robinson, her passion for this issue and years dedicated to it have been fueled by her love for her patients and fellow nurses. “I always tell nurses this: as far back as 1893, nurse and advocate Florence Nightingale, had the intent to allow nurses the autonomy of purpose to advocate for patients. However, she also said to advocate for the nursing profession, and that's something that frontline nurses, all nurses must do,” she said.

Listen to the full interview on the PX Space podcast available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Amazon Music.

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The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality makes an important distinction: that patient experience is not the same as patient satisfaction (although the concepts are related).

Patient satisfaction focuses on a person’s expectations and to what degree they were met. So, two different people could receive the same care but, because of their differing expectations, can have different levels of satisfaction.

Patient experience, meanwhile, focuses on the interactions they have with the healthcare system: doctors, nurses, and more. These range from the patient’s ability to seamlessly get timely appointments, information, and more. In other words, improving the patient experience is in your control while patient satisfaction is connected to the experience but is filtered through each individual patient’s perspective.

When evaluating your patient experience delivery at your facilities, focus on how well the patients receive “care that is respectful of and responsive to individual patient preferences, needs and values.”

Now, here are six reasons why your facility should focus on patient experience.

#1 The Right Thing to Do
Short and simple! Providing a quality patient experience is the right thing to do.

#2 Better Health Outcomes
Quality experiences can lead to more positive health reports. One study focuses on people hospitalized because of a heart attack—and a year after discharge, they have, on average, more positive outcomes if their patient experience was positive.

#3 Patient Loyalty
Just like with any other type of relationship, patients are more loyal to their healthcare providers when they receive a good experience. One study shows that patients who received the lowest quality of experience were three times more likely to switch physicians than those who received the highest quality.

#4 Staff Satisfaction / Lower Turnover
Healthcare staff don’t want to provide a poor quality experience for their patients. When healthcare facilities provide their clinicians and other employees with what they need to provide better care, they’re more likely to stay. One hospital focusing on improving work-related systems and processes reduced employee turnover by 4.7 percent.

# 5 Reduced Malpractice Rates
One study shows that, as the quality of patient experience drops, the chances of being named in a malpractice suit increases. When using patient-reported scores to calibrate this, each one-point drop in scoring increases the risk of a lawsuit by 21.7 percent. Looked at from the opposite perspective, the risk of a lawsuit drops by that amount each time that satisfaction with the patient experience increases.

#6 People Value Engaging Patient Education
According to a National Research Corporation (NRC) survey, cited by the National Library of Medicine, patients value physicians who explain things well. In fact, that’s the most important criterion for choosing a doctor. Poor levels of patient education can lead to unrealistic expectations—and then dissatisfaction when expectations aren’t met.

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Lack of Physician Time
In a national survey by The Physicians Foundation, only 11 percent of patients felt as though they had enough time in a physician-patient appointment to receive the highest standards of care. (Fourteen percent of physicians said the same thing.) So, on the one hand, 90 percent of patients believe that a solid relationship between a patient and physician is the “most essential element of a quality health care system,” but time is clearly being perceived as a significant barrier.
The solution: interactive patient education.

Components of Interactive Patient Education
Interactive patient education makes educational resources available to patients at their bedsides. This information can be delivered in the hospital as well as in a discharged patient’s home through interactive technologies, and educational materials are targeted to the patient’s specific conditions and treatments.

Interactive patient education is, as the name implies, interactive—and it’s also patient-centric, providing numerous benefits.

Benefits of Patient-Centric Care
Healthcare services that put the patient in the center—such as what can happen when quality patient education technology is used—lead to better informed patients. This, in turn, allows them to better understand their health conditions and treatment options, leading to better decision making by the patient.

Benefits continue from there. People who receive interactive patient education are more likely to consistently follow their treatment plans while being less likely to stop taking their prescriptions. Treatment compliance naturally creates efficiencies that can lower costs for patients and healthcare facilities while reducing provider liability. This can also boost patient satisfaction.

What’s most important to more fully realize these benefits: high quality patient education software.

Journey PX: Patient Education Software
Journey PX solves the problems associated with time-pressured physicians, allowing healthcare professionals to provide premium care by leveraging the power of quality patient education technology. When interactive patient education is readily available, patients can turn to this instead of searching for it on Google. Reliability of information found by surfing the web is uncertain, if not worse than uncertain—with inaccurate information having the potential to harm the person’s treatment.

Interactive patient information found in the Journey PX data, though, is continually updated so it always contains the latest in medical developments. So, when your healthcare facilities use this technology, you can share information with your patients with confidence.

Additional benefits of Journey PX include how it:

Can help healthcare facilities to overcome language barriers: When a patient is unable to understand instructions because they aren’t presented in a language they’re comfortable with, providing quality care can be extremely challenging. To address that issue, Journey PX is available in numerous languages with closed captioning available for the hearing impaired.
provides seamless access to relevant information: Journey PX is easy and convenient to use. Our cloud-based technology makes the system accessible through any mobile device, just about anywhere around the globe. It’s easy to implement in healthcare facilities, and intuitive for patients to use.
Fulfills all of your patient education technology needs
This is a turnkey solution that provides the entire range of interactive patient education needs.

To discuss how Journey PX can help your healthcare facilities to provide world-class education to your patients, please contact us online or call (800) 359-6741.

The issues facing nurses today are something very dear to the heart of Linda Robinson, the VP of Clinical Excellence at MDM Healthcare. Robinson reflected on the concepts of resilience and well-being as they relate to the current struggle hospital care teams are facing. “I have been a nurse for 35 years, and I was at the bedside for at least 28 of those years. I used to think that when the Emergency Department was falling apart and they needed help and they would say, Hey Linda, can you pick up four hours? We're getting killed here, We're diverting to another hospital. I'd say to myself, I can do this, another four hours can’t hurt me,” she said. “Overworked nurses often don't realize that they are putting their own mental health and health at risk,” she continued.

Nursing leaders continue to discuss the concepts of resilience and well-being as they relate to their profession. “Resilience meant to me that I had strength, perseverance, and resolve. It was a never give up kind of word,” stated Robinson, and she emphasized that there has been a shift in the healthcare community towards focusing on the well-being of nurses. Robinson explains the impact of the pandemic in 2020 resulted in the current situation many hospitals are facing today, nursing burnout which has led to a nursing shortage. “The inexperienced nurses at the beginning of COVID hit the ground running, and they're probably still running, wondering, is this really what I signed up for? If you look at the definition of resilience, It's the capacity of a person to maintain their core purpose and integrity in the face of dramatically changed circumstances. The question is how do we move that inexperienced workforce forward? We can not leave nurses behind on an island or hung out dry. They can't be in that room with a full code all alone. They need a team behind them. That team is the hospital, nursing leadership, and management,” she said. The focus now has to be on nurses' well-being.

Robinson believes that the way to positively impact nurses is through leadership, mentorship, and readily available, effective resources. Technology is one resource that can dramatically improve working conditions for nurses, helping to optimize their time and enhance their ability to assist patients and work with their team. “At MDM, our experienced team is dedicated to healthcare innovation and transformation. The power of technology in healthcare settings is most impactful when incorporating clinical nurses, and bedside nurses. We know that nurses are the cornerstone of the healthcare system, and right now they're stretched thin during this unprecedented time, and we want to help support them,” Robinson said.

Journey PX, our patient engagement solution has the capability to support care delivery by leaning down clinical workflows, automating the patient education process, offloading non-clinical tasks, and offering the capability of video connect into the patient room. This reduces exposure while still maintaining that face-to-face personal contact sentiment. We can help save nurses and the healthcare team valuable time and steps during this critical period.

Copy of Untitled (Blog Graphic) (Website)

Sentinel Event Alert published recently by the Joint Commission outlined
Five Key Ways to Support Health Care Workers

1. Foster open and transparent communication to build trust, reduce fears, build morale, and sustain an effective workforce.
2. Remove barriers to health care workers seeking mental health services and develop systems that support institutional, as well as individual resilience.
3. Protect workers’ safety using the National Institute of Occupational Health and Safety (NIOSH) Hierarchy of Controls framework.
4. Develop a flexible workforce; evaluate the work being performed and determine if it can be performed remotely.
5. Provide clinicians and others with opportunities to collaborate, lead and innovate.

Listen to the full interview on the PX Space podcast available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Amazon Music.

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We recently sat down with the VP of Clinical Excellence at MDM Healthcare, Linda Robinson to discuss how patient engagement drives hospital quality and safety initiatives. Robinson, an award-winning nurse, has worked in the patient care industry for 35 years. She has done extensive research in the area throughout her career. “When we have patients become active participants in their care, that is when they start to understand what they need to do to get themselves better. I would say to patients, healthcare doesn't just happen to you, it’s happening with you,” she said. Robinson illustrated the idea that humanizing care means empowering, educating, and engaging patients in their care to support the patient experience. “That's bringing humanity into the care at the bedside, and that really helps us drive quality and safety. All those things are fundamentally important for patients today,” she said.

One tool healthcare providers have today to help drive better outcomes and elevate the patient experience is technology. Technology plays a role in helping to empower patients and develop that patient experience, especially as it relates to quality and safety. “The healthcare industry should be open to embracing technology. The rest of the world outside the hospital walls is really embracing technology and hospitals are just now starting to do that,” Robinson said. “What I think is really exciting is that technology has the ability to be in that patient room. Even when the healthcare staff or the clinicians are not. So, it can help personalize, humanize, and demystify the healthcare experience because that information is in the room in real-time and at their fingertips,” she continued. She further explained that while technology is an amazing tool for healthcare providers when it comes to dealing with patients, it should be intuitive. “Technology should be very simple to use. A patient should not have to learn how to use something in the room when they’re sick and frankly overwhelmed. It should be as easy as working a television remote,” she said.

One type of technology that is changing the landscape for acute care facilities is digital whiteboards. A digital whiteboard, unlike the grease board on the wall, is kept up in real-time, and it's there for the patient to view throughout the day. Digital whiteboards connect with hospitals' EMRs and are updated in real-time which provides vital information to hospital care teams, patients, and their families. Robinson explained how digital whiteboards are used to enhance the patient experience and drive better quality and safety outcomes. “When patients go to the hospital so many times, they don't know what's going happen. They think: I don't know, nobody tells me anything. Technology can help us hard-wire bedside shift reports. Every patient should get a bedside shift report. They are one of the biggest drivers of quality and safety. Patients can be assured that the technology the digital whiteboard displays in their room is going to be up to date. They can see tests that are ordered, activities that they need to do, and the goals that have been set for them,” she said. Digital whiteboards also provide patients and their families with key information and answers to any questions they may have. This information at their bedside comforts them, keeps them informed, and really transforms their care. It’s a win-win situation for both patients and hospital care teams as Robinson explains, “These technology tools help drive quality and safety from a patient's perspective, but then also from a healthcare provider's perspective.”

Technology is now allowing patients to become more empowered by getting educated on their conditions. “Delivering information in a timely manner in digestible bites for the patient at home, and at the bedside really makes a difference in their care. It not only drives health literacy, but it increases outcomes. It also keeps hospital costs down,” said Robinson. Robinson described how the technology works. “Let's say a patient comes into the hospital and, upon admission, there is a screening for a fall. So, a fall score is done, and the patient has a high fall risk. As soon as that is documented within the EMR, a video about preventing falls in the hospital can automatically be sent to that patient. That patient then gets a prompt on their television set that says: “you've been ordered a video about your health. Would you like to watch it now, or would you like us to remind you later?” The patient can watch it now by pushing 1 on their pillow speaker or remote, whatever is in the room for them to use for their television or they can say, remind me later. If they say, remind me later, it can be customized to remind that patient,” she explained. One of the biggest benefits of the technology used in Journey PX solutions is that they provide care facilities with a better means of exchanging vital information in real-time. “It's closing gaps in communication, and we know that when we close gaps in communication, it improves clinical outcomes. It keeps them safe, and it drives quality within their care,” said Robinson. “You're giving them the information they need and that's how trust is built, and that's what has them coming back to your organization as well,” she continued.

Listen to the full interview on the PX Space podcast available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Amazon Music.

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Assessing the Situation

The American College of Nursing reported a concerning problem for the healthcare industry, a nursing shortage which began prior to 2017 but was further impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Linda Robinson, the Vice President of Clinical Excellence at MDM Healthcare, has been a nurse for over 34 years and went back to work as an experienced nurse during the pandemic. She states,

“Truly the profession I have worked in for 34 years is forever changed. During the pandemic, healthcare workers were dubbed by the media and the community as superheroes. However, the reality was much harsher. The COVID-19 pandemic left healthcare workers, especially nurses, feeling bruised and battered. I saw it many times when I was working during the pandemic, I heard it, I felt it, and I can tell you many of them did not feel like heroes. They felt like they were coming to work and they were fighting an unwinnable battle and they couldn’t escape it.”

Recent research from a national survey of nurses conducted by the American Association of Critical-Care Nurses (AACN) reveals that during the past few years, “the health of nurse work environments has declined dramatically.” The report indicates that among many key factors, nurses have perceived a decline in communication and collaboration in their work environment and appropriate staffing (the right number of RN staff with the right knowledge and skills) to be major concerns. It states, “The impact of this further decline in the appropriate staffing of nurses is likely to have long-standing effects on nurse well-being and patient safety if not corrected expeditiously.” The study also reveals a dramatic decline in how nurses rated the quality of care in their organizations and work units.

The Experience Complexity Gap

Robinson states that the COVID-19 pandemic accelerated an already difficult problem. “Nurses started leaving the workforce in very large numbers. We had experienced nurses leaving due to burnout. New nurses were entering the workforce, and they were unprepared for the intensity of the pandemic. The mentors were not available, and new nurses didn’t have the advantage of the new hire training and preceptorship that they normally would have received. Many times, these new nurses were put right on COVID floors to take care of COVID patients, and they were just simply unprepared for that. Because of all this, we saw a worsening in the experience complexity gap, which is really the heart of the nursing shortage.”

Robinson referenced solutions outlined in the framework to optimize healthcare performance, which was developed by the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) in 2007 and recently revised. Robinson explains what used to be the triple aim to improve healthcare system performance, a framework built around reducing costs, improving population health, and patient experience, has now evolved to the quadruple aim, to include healthcare team well-being into the framework.

Bold Changes

The new healthcare landscape with all of its challenges is transforming rapidly in healthcare,” said Robinson. She referenced a study recently published by McKinsey & Company on retaining the healthcare workforce. It states, “Organizations may consider how to leverage digital tools and adapt care models. Although the experiences of 2020-2021 have impacted every profession, few have been more impacted than the nursing workforce. The trauma and moral distress of the past years have exacerbated work force vulnerabilities, but also provide a unique opportunity to accelerate changes (for example, technology-enabled care models) and make bold investments in what the future of nursing could look like.”

Robinson suggests the future of nursing rests on transforming care delivery models and leaning down clinical workflows for healthcare teams, which can be accomplished today using new technology.

“Largely nurses were underappreciated, and I think it’s come to the forefront from the pandemic. We really must take care of our nurses and ask ourselves: how are we helping them with work-life balance? Also, how are we helping them with workflow optimization? That’s something that we work very diligently on at [MDM Healthcare’s cloud-based patient experience platform] Journey PX because we really want to be that partner that helps lean down nursing, clinician, and provider workflows. Our goal is to help them do what they do better and give them the ability to have a presence in the room, even if they’re not actually in the room.”

The McKinsey study suggests these changes would be embraced by nurses and patients alike. It states, “As hospital systems contemplate new ways to embed virtual elements into nursing workflows to improve safety, quality, and efficiency, they are likely to find an enthusiastic workforce. Roughly two-thirds of frontline nurses are interested in providing virtual care in the future.”

The study also suggests that the impact of technology has the capacity to help change care delivery models will result in reducing the need for nurses. It states,

“for every 1 percent expansion of capacity, created through changes in care delivery models, technology-enabled productivity tools, or alternative sites of care settings for patients, the number of nurses needed would decrease by about 25,000.

As the healthcare industry recognizes the need for change and embraces technology solutions, there is some renewed hope that hospital care teams can recover from the challenges they have faced in recent years.

“Nursing truly is a calling. They’re at our sides at birth throughout our lives, during illness, hardship, and even death. We really have to hold onto our nurses and take care of them,” says Robinson.

Listen to the full interview on the PX Space podcast available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Amazon Music.

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