Patient Wish List: Remember the simple things

By Nacuya Lewis

Our patients have spoken and we’re listening. The UF Health Shands Patient Satisfaction Continuous Quality Improvement, or CQI, team recently adopted a list of the 10 most common things that inpatients and their families want to remind our clinical staff, known as the Patient Wish List.

“Though many of the items on the list seem like common sense, in the hustle and bustle of health care, providers may forget some of the simple things,” said Jessica Birkett, M.S.N., R.N., UF Health Shands Hospital Medical/Surgical Unit 74 nurse manager and UF Health Shands Patient Satisfaction CQI team member. “Implementing the Patient Wish List will continue to assist the organization toward our vision of patient-centered, innovative and high-quality care.”

The team is led by Robert Leverence, M.D., UF College of Medicine professor and vice chair for clinical affairs, and Irene Alexaitis, D.N.P., R.N., NEA-BC, UF Health Shands Hospital chief nursing officer and Nursing and Patient Services vice president. The focus is on implementing innovative ways to improve our patient experience, based on patient satisfaction scores using data collected through rounding surveys. After reading an article that featured The John Hopkins Armstrong Institute for Patient Safety and Quality Wish List, the team noticed the items on this list matched many of our patients’ wishes and decided to implement the strategy at UF Health.

“This list is a constant reminder that our patients are at the heart of our organization,” Alexaitis said. “It’s important to us that our patients are physically and emotionally comfortable. We’re excited to have yet another method in place to ensure that we’re keeping quality patient care at the forefront of our health care.”