May 27, 2005

Learning more about quality and safety from employee-patients

As a part of the hospital's ongoing effort to improve the quality and safety of patient care, the MGH is launching a project that will explore the patient's perspective on the care they have received. For the next three months, an MGH team will conduct confidential interviews of MGH employees and staff — who also are patients at the hospital — to find out more about their patient care experiences. The project is under the direction of Susan Edgman-Levitan, executive director of The Stoeckle Center for Primary Care Innovation.

"By obtaining feedback from people who have a keen understanding of the health care system, the hope is that the hospital might gain better insights into what works well and what areas need improvement," says Edgman-Levitan. The ultimate goal of the interview initiative is to create a series of case studies that will supplement the hospital's quantitative data about quality and safety issues. The interviews will examine topics such as respect for patient preferences, preparation for discharge and treatment of families. The team will then forward a summary report of its findings to Patient Care Services and the Quality Oversight Committee, which is a part of the hospitalwide Strategic Planning Committee.

"As one of the country's leading health care institutions, it is critical that we look beyond the data to better understand the level of care we are providing patients,"says Gregg Meyer, MD, medical director of the Massachusetts General Physicians Organization (MGPO) and champion of the MGH Strategic Planning Committee for Quality and Safety.

All MGH and MGPO employees who are patients at the MGH are invited to participate. For more information, contact either Edgman-Levitan at sedgmanlevitan@partners.org or Meyer at gmeyer@partners.org.