Employees Represent BWFH at 5th Annual Mass General Brigham Patient Experience Summit

At the 5th Annual Mass General Brigham Patient Experience Summit, administrators and non-clinicians, clinicians and patient and family advisors from around the Mass General Brigham system came together to explore ways to improve the patient experience. Among them were Brigham and Women’s Faulkner Hospital’s Director of Community Health and Wellness Tracy Sylven, CHHC, MCHES, who presented during a breakout session titled “Engaging Underserved Populations,” and Service Excellence Manager Mary Beth Dynan, who shared the I CARE Award model during the “Blueprints for Building a Better Experience for Patients and Staff” workshop.

The objectives of this year’s Patient Experience Summit included discussing best practices in literature or in practice at Mass General Brigham; identifying the key elements of patient experience across the continuum of care; and applying techniques to enhance the experience of patients within individual practice.

In her presentation, focused on her team’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Sylven talked about how food insecurity impacts health and the work that is needed in the community. “Participating in the Patient Experience Summit, for me, was about raising awareness. The more people who know about what we’re doing and what is actually going on in the communities we serve, the better off we all are,” says Sylven. “The session went really well. I had a lot of folks reach out afterwards who wanted to know how to get involved and asked a lot of questions.”

Dynan also found her breakout session members to be very engaged. “Most of the questions I received centered around the time commitment it takes to hand out so many I CARE Awards. They were all impressed we are able to do so many on such a regular basis,” she says. “I explained how we’re able to make I CARE Awards quick yet impactful.”

For both Sylven and Dynan the highlight of the day was keynote speaker Tommy Whitelaw, BCAh, Honorary Master Open University for Health, Social Care and Policy National Lead on Caring and Outreach Health and Social Care Alliance Scotland (the ALLIANCE). “He talked about his personal experience caring for his mother when her health took a turn. He talked a lot about how providers sometimes provide care without paying much attention to the person in the middle of all of it. I thought his talk served as a good reminder that we always have to keep the patient in mind,” says Dynan.

If you missed the event, or want to see the presentations again, click here.