We the People Who Care for Children

Pediatric outpatient clinic colleagues created a pledge to enhance care

Putting patients first

After experiencing great care during the birth of her daughter and then learning about the pediatric outpatient clinic through outreach events, Dawn Roche (right) knew she wanted to work here. Now she’s a medical secretary, and her background in team building and conflict resolution helps her as head of the practice’s customer service task force. She helps put the needs of patients like Jaydin and Siriya and their parents, Tannya and Luis Melendez of Allentown, first.

Colleagues at LVH–17th and Chew’s pediatric outpatient clinic faced some serious concerns. “Families told us they had trouble making appointments, waited too long once they were here and couldn’t identify us,” says practice manager Sue Jones, R.N. “We needed to change.”

To find a solution, clinic colleagues brainstormed with neonatal and pediatric intensive care unit (NICU and PICU) colleagues. Several years ago, the NICU found new ways to better involve families in their children’s care.

“The pediatric outpatient clinic took these ideas to a new level,” says neonatologist Lorraine Dickey, M.D., who champions patient- and family-centered care with pediatric intensivist Kerrie Ann Pinkney, M.D. These efforts, which also are being explored on adult care units, are part of the 10-year Patient-Centered Experience 2016 initiative to enhance all patients’ experiences at Lehigh Valley Health Network.

To enhance care at the clinic, colleagues used existing resources and created a Bill of Rights for Families—a pledge to involve families in all aspects of care. Here’s what it includes:

We will introduce ourselves. We will explain our role in your child’s care, and we will wear our IDs at all times.
Colleagues wear polo-style shirts so patients and their families can easily identify them. Collages with colleagues’ names and photos soon will hang in the practice’s three waiting rooms.

We will welcome you and your family because you are the most important people to your child.
Colleagues wrote and adopted guidelines for staff, families and guests. Among them: Colleagues pledged to forgo social discussions around patients, and requested families bring no more than two adults to accompany children during exams. Colleagues make bus schedules, hospital maps and taxi information readily available to families to reduce missed appointments, and also extended office hours to evenings and weekends. They collaborated with telecommunication colleagues to help them better triage the more than 6,000 phone calls received each month, and use an automated calling service to deliver appointment reminders to patients.

Your child will be cared for by people who understand the needs of children and teenagers.
To better understand their patients’ and our community’s needs, the clinic provides care to local elementary schools. Recently clinic and NICU colleagues teamed up to provide tardy students with alarm clocks. (Children were late because no one woke them up.) To help colleagues connect on a personal level, they hold fireside chats. It’s an opportunity for colleagues to step out of their professional roles and share their own health care experiences—a proven model for improving patient- and family-centered care.

—Sally Gilotti

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