<p>hello everyone this is Cole from the CX matters podcast I'm joined by a very special guest Dominic Dominic please introduce yourself in your role sure thank you very much cole I'm Dominic kayata I am the senior director for patient experience here at Bay Health Medical Center which is located in Central and Southern Delaware welcome to the CX matters podcast a production of the American Journal of healthc care strategy with your host Cole l [Music] we're so happy to have you on from the beautiful state of Delaware I'm here in Philadelphia so not too far off from you we're really excited to discuss your career you've had a long career in healthc care and especially in that CX patient Improvement space I want to ask what got you into this customer experience patient experience space what was that intro to that yeah so I think I've always had that bias if you will always trying to improve the uh experience regardless of who my customer was and I've been very fortunate to do that in many Industries and many fields to include Social Services mental health as well as probably the most sustained has been in health care but I also did it as an external consultant and it was always my passion and purpose to provide Superior experiences regardless who I was serving this is two organizations ago I was that internal resource for any of the Departments trying to create education and developmental materials and just around that time that's when value based purchasing hit and now we had to think about how we provided the patient experience how we measured that and then ultimately got reimbursed for it and that got a lot of people's attention so the leader who was headed that up at the time reached out to me and said hey got to do this education we've got to look at this patient experience stuff differently and so we started getting into it I was just like wow somebody gets to do this for a living this is aome how have I not known about this and from there that's what started my whole career first starting out in patient advocacy where I supervised uh teams that did patient relations and patient advocacy managed Grievances and complaints and then from there was tapped to lead the patient experience initiatives at my last two organiz ations very impressive how long were you in your career before you made this shift how many years had you been working post College yeah I'm very old that that's the first disclaimer here so it was a solid 20 years before I made the transition into that but again a as discussed I think customer experience was always top of mind and I always like to start with the end in mind so what's the impact I want to have on the end user and now how do I shape all experiences all services and the organizational culture to be able to achieve that and and because of that did that make that shift a bit easier for you it really did you know and it it's always been my Mantra and now I bring it to the patient experience how I start all my trainings and all my education is nobody cares how much you know until they know how much you care and once you start with that then you can provide any service and form a real partnership so that was my Mantra either working in mental health or working in the credit card industry or wherever and it really served me well you've worked for some pretty impressive organizations in the region Christian Care Mainline now Bay Health all kind of leading their patient experience department and Mission what did you do early on were there any projects were there any achievements early on in the patient experience career that made it so that people recognized you as someone who is really able to affect change yeah going back to that experience of Christian Care where it's first ta it was really helping all team members focused differently on the patient experience and how it was so connected to everything else we do from a quality of safety Equity standpoint as well as reimbursement and really what I say at the end of the day it's getting cred credit for the hard work that everyone's doing and knowing that it is a real science I think a lot of people just thought ah just be nice to the patients give them what they want everything's going to be fine but as we know now and this has just exploded with your pres gy your Barrow institutes so many other that have done the Deep dive around the science of patient experience and how to create those and then measure it and what are the evidence-based practices behind that so that's where I quickly had to do become a student of the business and look for that research and then once I had that data that made the business case for me to then go out and say this is where we need to focus and as a result I think a lot of people then saw the connection the light bulbs went off for them and they found that their jobs became easier so less call Bells a lot of less disgruntled patients when you did this and you did it consistently that science aspect of it right you know using kind of the scientific method right of testing actually you know forming hypotheses that's really important in patient experience now like you're saying it's exploded but at the time where did you learn that from how did you figure that out because that's not something that you know we pick up from from college or high school yeah it really is so it was just going out to the literature and just doing a lot of you know looking at those key milestones in the patient journey and then what were the connected approaches strategies that would yield the greatest results so we was just doing a lot of research and seeing what results early on and it's just amazing because I was just referencing those as I'm creating some new uh materials here at my present work and it's just amazing to say oh my gosh yeah I remember doing that research back in 2008 to create this education but it wasn't all one place where now you do have that all centrally located and makes a huge difference uh now that people have really compiled put that together but it was just a lot of disparate uh resources and then calming through and then just as importantly because it's one thing to have those best practices but if they're not in line with the culture and the Strategic vision of that organization you're going to spin your wheels and hit your head against the wall a lot so it's really important to incorporate what was important to that organization and their culture what was in their mission and vision value statement that I could include and research those because those were already familiar so I just tried to leverage that in all of my research that's an important tactic right because organizations recruit from all over the country our college background usually gives us a certain way of doing things and we come into a new organization we might have to adapt and change that right so do you have any recommendations on how we can do research and learn to adapt and change what we are presenting so that it matches the organization's goal and Mission yeah absolutely first of all for me the best source of this data it's one thing to do the research but go to your patients they're going to tell you at the end of the day when they think of your organization what comes to mind and it might be an experience in their emergency department or at a primary care office they're going to remember how people made them feel so I always start that as a foundational and then put all the building blocks on together and for me too it's more and more you we we can't be in our silos anymore so it's really adopting best practices from quality safety now I would add Equity into that unified approach and in fact just integrate it so there's always with every patient experience you know we we tend to just focus on the patient satisfaction side but there's that great quadruple AIM now right it's make me better don't hurt me and create a great experience obviously we we got to look at cutting the cost of providing health care and then the last one is the well-being of our team members as well so really making sure you baked in all five of those and how we can create efficiencies to drive down cost to make people want to come back and make the access easier for them that question no that definitely answers the question you know focusing on that internal and external customer the patient experience is technically a non-clinical role you're right we don't have a degree that allows us to treat patients directly yeah so one of the the problems when it comes to really getting how our patients feel is we're not always working with patients on the front line we're not always able to get that instantaneous feedback it's a bit easier with the internal Customer because we can do that right we can meet with our co-workers and and be in those shared basis how in throughout your career have you been able to get this patient feedback so that you get it in full context and Clarity that's such a great question and so important I think as leaders in this space we have to be so intentional to carve out time that as I expect and demand all of my leaders to be rounding on patients I have to round on them as well and and then managing the patient advocacy uh function too I make sure I've got several cases on the books at all times that keeps my finger on the pulse around that experience obviously I read all of our comments from the week before all of our Google reviews other posts just to really start to collect and create the picture of where those points of friction are so that is kind of my system my regiment that I make sure I attend to that every single week because if not my credibility is shot if I can't walk in the shoes of our patient and just as importantly translate that experience to those that are at the bedside and providing care so that's been really important we also can't say enough about the power of patient and family advisory groups and making sure you have those and you have those for the various service lines because there's things that are very specific based on that service line and what's important to those patients and families so I oversee all of those as well and that's really kept my foot into understanding the voice of our customer so it is a science but it's a field science right where you're actually you know you're not in a lab somewhere in an office you're actually really involved with these patients and I have a question for you on on what you mentioned about these advisory groups right it is really challenging sometimes to get members and patients to really want to be involved in these groups what have you found to be especially success uccessful uh yeah it's those personal connections so this is where using your grievance and complaint data and function to understand you know those experiences and then forming that relationship because the goal again is to always reinstate that trust in our organization and have them come back for services at the end of every phone call at the end of every letter it's that and I never want to see this happen to any other other patient or family member so that's always my kind of inroad to say hey you said this we talk through your situation do you really want to help patients moving forward and if yes have I got the opportunity for you and a lot of times that's been very successful and again just not the relationships that I have obviously that's something I preach uh first of all to my Pati advocacy team to say hey always be on the lookout for who you think would be a great Ambassador so you don't avoid the claims and grievance people you actually seek them out which is a strategy I've heard sometimes let's avoid you know bringing these people in because we don't want you know to cause an incident or you know I've heard these things before the industry you kind of go after these people how do you train your staff because this you have a background in this training field right so how do you train your staff on how to deal with individuals whove had a really bad had experience and who have a really valid claim who might be very upset at what's happened to them yeah so first of all it goes back to something that is a big part of my Approach is is mindful self-compassion so I try to instill that on the front line because going into these situations can be very very contentious as you can imagine especially if there's been an error or a sentinal event having people lean into that and give them the skill set from a service recovery perspective so they feel equipped and when they don't they know who their resources are so a lot of times it's just that partnership you know so really that's where I see my patient advocacy team and others hey let's go in that room together and try to get the train back on the tracks and then that followup several times during their stay or if it's on an outpatient basis let's just check in with them to see how their next appointment went so now you start to form that relationship so it's really understanding yourself and if you're not in the frame of mind to go in and have that conversation and I say you're allowed to tap out let's get somebody else in there who has done a little bit of that breathing that mindfulness is not going to get uh what I like to say hooked by that negative energy and just see the patient for who they are you know it's never trying to explain away or make excuses really people just want to be heard and seen and validated so I say that's the biggest skill set you can do and if you're still feeling stuck call me I'll come up to the room and we'll talk about it all three of us and really get to the underlying issue where was that anxiety coming from or that real anger and now again let's turn around this experience for that patient family I I really love that and again that focuses on the internal customer right all of us because now the employees can to have a much better experience they're not going to go home you know with stress or or with huge amounts of anxiety over an incident because they know that you're there to support them so that's excellent excellent advice what can we do as maybe people who aren't directly in that CX space but you still have customer interaction if we want to start molding our careers to be a leader like yourself in CX and in patient experience where I always start is become a student of the business if you can't know all the touch points of that patient Journey you're going to get stuck along the way and your Effectiveness will quickly dwindle so that's the first thing I did the minute I was tapped to develop that education I said if I'm going to expect other people to do this I got to understand it from start to finish so I dug in I did a lot of informational interviews I put on the bunny suit and went in the O I met with our practice is off site and just understood their challenges in providing health care what a typical day was so you have to get that credibility first of all especially if you are non-clinical because people are looking at that you know first of all you better know what you're talking about here you better understand what it takes for my team my department my service line to provide care and what are our challenges so I always start with that secondly then I move to how can I get you credit for the hard work that you're doing so again by those observations where they're stuck what I read in the patient comments I try to understand why they got into health care and then as a result of covid and many other things and challenges capacity issues access people with a lot shorter fuses workplace violence what's important to the well-being of my team members and when I come in with that approach approach I I you just get a lot more traction you get a lot more buying and I think a lot of people you know just stick to the research or just stick to the best practices and then get frustrated when they've got all these great ideas and you get no traction at the end of the day so it's really understanding as you put so well both your internal and external customers that's what's going to give you the greatest inroads and credibilities on that note of credibility traction because customer experience does not generate Revenue directly right even though it does have a massive impact on the revenue and cash flow how can or how have you in the past been able to tie those two things together so that Financial leadership you know thinking your CFO can sign off on some of these projects yeah you know it's really about doing what matters most you know and what's going to get us the greatest gains because I think a lot a lot of people just try to boil the ocean but that's not really going to get you where you want to be so first of all it's understanding what the endgame are what are the outcomes you're looking for what are you measuring on your dashboard and now what are the specific interventions that are going to get you there instead of just trying to do everything and a lot of times that resonates when you can make that business case to say if we focus on these three things and create processes and systems around that this is how it's going to raise our likelihood to recommend or whatever it might be or it really boost our reviews and then people can say okay that makes a lot of sense let's talk about that you know the other big business case for me too is looking at your quality and safety data and find out where the errors were so again I think people love to hear that because now you've tied in keeping our patients safe as as well as our employees on the patient side but then on the employees side sick days workman's come so many those other levers that a CFO is trying to look at on their balance sheet that by creating those more High reliability systems this is what's going to help us achieve our goals and save money at the same time really solid advice and thank you so much for coming on during our lunch hour today I really do appreciate it and I'm excited to listen to this back when it's done being edited and gain all the advice over because I feel motivated now I'm hoping our audience will as well thank you so much for your time I've learned a lot too so thank you</p>