Adult Hospital teams make a difference in patient care

Care team members from University Hospital and Frankel Cardiovascular Center, the Adult Hospitals at U-M Health, are often acknowledged by patients, family members and peers for the exceptional patient care they provide. It’s no surprise, then, that the team has achieved its highest ranking in overall patient care this year, based on the Press Ganey Adult Inpatient Survey, which compares patient feedback from more than 560 hospitals and health systems across the country.

A score of 92.7 at the end of fiscal year 2022 placed the Adult Hospitals in the 90^th percentile in the nation for overall rating of care. You can read more about the high ranking in this Headlines article, but you can also read the following stories, shared by patients or their families, via the  Making a Difference recognition tool.

Exceptional patient care from the start

The best patient care begins even before treatment in many cases. For example, Denise Hill, medical assistant at the CVC, made a difference in the lives of two patients who were waiting in the clinic. She recognized they were ill, notified the physician promptly and expedited their transport to the Emergency Department. Both patients were admitted to the hospital. Her caring, sharp clinical assessment and quick actions showed how much she cared for her patient’s well-being.

Another example of quick, patient-centered care was attributed to emergency medicine house officer, Nathan Roberts, M.D., who recognized a need to transition care for a sick patient between care teams. The patient had been admitted to the Medicine Faculty Hospitalists (MFH) service as the primary team managing the patient, while the patient was still physically in the UH emergency department waiting for a bed. However, the patient’s condition changed for the worse and needed urgent consultation with the cardiology and electrophysiology teams.

Despite no longer being the patient’s primary team, Roberts and his colleagues still monitored the patient through intermittent episodes of a dangerous heart rhythm and helped facilitate the consultations and communication between the MFH, cardiology and electrophysiology teams so that the change in condition was known by everyone involved in the patient’s care.

Ultimately, the patient needed an urgent procedure and the collaboration between the ED, MFH, and the consulting teams contributed to the patient’s positive outcome.

While MFH attributed Roberts’ quick thinking and collaboration to the effort, Roberts called it a true team effort, saying, “It was very considerate of the MFH team to submit the award, but in the end, we were all just trying to provide the best care for the patient and work as a larger Michigan medicine team across departments.” 

In the patient’s words

Hospital stays on their own can be very stressful for a patient — but are often made even more complex by additional testing, x-rays, injections and visits from a variety of professionals.

Keeping patients comfortable and informed about the procedures shows how much team members care. Here are examples of how these moments of caring can make a difference, in the patients’ words:

“I would like to take this time to thank Candice for taking care of me during my test in the GI lab. She was very professional and caring. She has a great bedside manner and I am grateful she took the time to be so polite and caring. Thank you, Candice!”

-For Candice Miller, GI physiology technologist, UH GI Physiology Laboratory

“Bud, thank you for helping me get through my MRI! The heated blankets and music helped me get through without needing medication. You were awesome!”

-For Donald “Bud” Clark, MRI technologist, UH Radiology

“Omar did a great job making sure I was cared for. He is very professional and very caring. Thank you, Omar!”

                          -For Omar Taher, GI physiology technologist, UH GI Physiology Laboratory

Keeping families informed

It takes a village at Michigan Medicine to take care of patients … and their villages. And so, it becomes an important part of the work to inform family members of the care that their loved ones are receiving. This is reflected in the Making a Difference award received by patient services intermediate Noreen Myricks, who works in the CPU Central/Recovery area of the Frankel CVC.

“Thank you for being so informative about my father. From the time we entered CVC 2A you were a great help! You kept me informed from the time my father went into his room, to keeping me updated on his surgery. I greatly appreciate you keeping me up to date.”

Thank you to everyone at the adult hospitals for all you do to provide exceptional patient care.