Authors of the national abstract competition winning entry include, from left, Lauren E. Russo MSN, RN, Administrative Director, Medical Surgical Division; Kenneth M. Granet, MD, Chief Medical Officer; Internal Medicine resident physicians Raghu Tiperneni, M.D., Shailee Patel, MD, and Farah Heis, M.D.; Doantrang Du, M.D., Internal Medicine Residency Program Director; and Wael Ghali, M.D., RWJBH Hospitalist site director.
Long Branch, NJ, July 8, 2022 – A Monmouth Medical Center (MMC) quality improvement study that drove dramatic improvement in hospitalized patients’ satisfaction with physician communication was recently honored at a national American College of Physicians (ACP) meeting.
The study, titled HCAHPS: Having constant Communication Augments Hospital and Patient Satisfaction, was honored as one of 20 winners among more than 4,000 entries in the national abstract competitions during Internal Medicine Meeting 2022, ACP’s annual scientific meeting held this spring in Chicago.
Winners on site in Chicago to present their winning abstracts at the podium included MMC Internal Medicine resident physician Raghu Tiperneni, M.D. She explains that the purpose of the study, which included all adult patients that were admitted to inpatient non-ICU medical units between January 1st and June 30th, 2021, was to orient house staff, nurses, and attending physicians on medical services on the AIDET (Acknowledge, Introduce, Duration, Explain, Thank you) approach, which is designed to keep patients informed and make them feel heard.
“AIDET stands for the five key communication behaviors that create positive care interactions: acknowledge, introduce, duration, explanation and thank you,” Dr. Tipereni says. “Additional afternoon hospital rounds were implemented to summarize the plan and discuss updates occurring throughout the day to enhance doctor-patient communication.”
Data analysis was done by HCAHPS domain scores for “Communication with Doctors.” The HCAHPS (Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems) survey, which encompasses 10 domains each with 29 questions addressing interpersonal, medical, and environmental elements of patient care, was developed by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services in partnership with the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality in 2006. Since then, it has become a standardized instrument to measure hospitalized patients' perception of care.
“Results of the study showed that during the research period, the “Communication with Doctors" domain significantly improved,” she says. “Our results suggest that HCAHPS scores in the ‘Communication with Doctors’ domain can be improved when employing the AIDET approach with each patient encounter and the addition of afternoon rounds.”
In addition to Dr. Tipereni, abstract authors included Kenneth M. Granet, MD, Chief Medical Officer; Doantrang Du, M.D., Wael Ghali, M.D RWJBH Hospitalist site director, Internal Medicine resident physicians Shailee Patel, MD, and Farah Heis, M.D., Samara Ghali and, Lauren E. Russo MSN, RN, Administrative Director, Medical Surgical Division. A regional teaching campus of Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, Monmouth Medical Center ranks 29th among the 50 best major teaching hospitals in the United States according to Washington Monthly.
“Monmouth Medical Center, which was recently named to the 2022 Newsweek list of World’s Best Hospitals, continues to be recognized nationally for its research efforts,” said Dr. Granet. “This is an impressive achievement by the combined physician and nursing team and illustrates how we work together at Monmouth Medical Center to give our patients the best possible experience.”
CONTACT: Kathy Horan
732-923-6632
Kathy.Horan@rwjbh.org