OREANDA-NEWS. Press Ganey Holdings, Inc. (NYSE: PGND) is collaborating with Cleveland Clinic to distribute and implement its “Communicate with H.E.A.R.T.” program to hospitals looking to improve their patient experience. The program, created and launched at Cleveland Clinic in 2010, has played a significant role in the improvement of organizational culture and reinforcing empathy as a core component of the patient experience. This offering will further expand Press Ganey’s suite of performance improvement solutions that help health care organizations improve the overall safety, quality and experience of care.

The Communicate with H.E.A.R.T. program has five foundational components:

  • Hear the concern
  • Empathize with the way the person is feeling
  • Apologize for the experience the person is having
  • Respond with action to the problem
  • Thank the person for giving you an opportunity to make things right.

“The H.E.A.R.T. program complements our Compassionate Connected Care® model as we partner with health care providers to reduce patient and caregiver suffering,” said Patrick T. Ryan, CEO, Press Ganey. “We are proud to collaborate with Cleveland Clinic to offer leading and innovative programs that advance patient-centered care through engagement, safety and quality initiatives.”

Communicate with H.E.A.R.T. was developed in Cleveland Clinic’s Office of Patient Experience in 2010, and is the foundational communication model of the organization. Patients and frontline caregivers helped drive the development of the program as a way to teach employees to effectively and empathetically address both patients’ and colleagues’ concerns and questions. The program includes a training model for practical approaches to effective communication such as how to start interactions and how to offer service recovery. It also involves interactive training based on actual experiences and conversations of frontline staff and employees in healthcare.

“We have learned that isolated tactics in patient experience have limited success. What we all want is to create a culture of empathy and relationships that matter to those we serve,” said Adrienne Boissy, M.D., Chief Experience Officer of Cleveland Clinic. “The added benefit of H.E.A.R.T. is it addresses the opportunity to enhance how we also better care for each other – something our service excellence program has built in. We’re delighted that we can share the work with a broader audience through the relationship with Press Ganey and are well aligned in the commitment to reduce suffering for all.”

At Cleveland Clinic, the Communicate with H.E.A.R.T. program has benefited both employees and patients. Since implementing this program and others, the healthcare organization has increased employee engagement and key HCAHPS (Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems) metrics while reducing ombudsman complaints. The program is customizable, allowing for a local culture approach.