Walk With Me: Supporting Patients Through Every Step of Care [OnCall with Southern New Hampshire Health]

In this episode of On Call with Southern New Hampshire Health, Rebecca Cooper Piela, Senior Vice President of Quality, Safety, and Accreditation and Chief Quality Officer, shares the inspiration behind Walk With Me, Southern NH Health’s system-wide initiative designed to create a smoother, more supportive experience for every patient we serve.

Rebecca reflects on her path from bedside nursing to senior leadership and how those experiences shaped her commitment to improving patient experience. She explains how Walk With Me encourages all staff to think about care from a patient’s point of view and to stay present with patients and families throughout their journeys.

Listeners will hear real examples of how Walk With Me is already making an impact, along with a look ahead at what is coming next. This conversation highlights how small, intentional actions can create meaningful reassurance and support for the people who trust Southern New Hampshire Health with their care. 

Full Transcript: 

Scott Webb (Host): Today, I am joined by Rebecca Cooper-Piela. She's the Vice President of Quality, Safety, and Accreditation, and the Chief Quality Officer for Southern New Hampshire Health. And she's here to tell us about the Walk With Me Initiative, which is helping to better meet patient needs and expectations at Southern New Hampshire Health.  

Scott Webb (Host): This is On Call with Southern New Hampshire Health. I'm Scott Webb. Rebecca, it's so nice to have you here today. We're going to talk about Walk With Me and what that is and what that means. But before we get there, I just want to welcome you to the podcast.

Rebecca Cooper-Piela: Thank you very much. It's a pleasure to be here with you today.

Host: Yeah, it's great to have you here. And as I said, we're going to tease a little bit there. We're going to get to Walk With Me and what that is exactly. But before we get there, tell us about your professional journey in healthcare and what drives your passion for patient experience.

Rebecca Cooper-Piela: So, I think my passion for patient experience really comes from my journey in healthcare. Originally, I went to school to be a nurse, and practiced as a nurse in Boston for a period of time, taking care of patients, then returned to become a nurse practitioner, and actually came to Southern New Hampshire Health about 30 years ago to establish my practice.

Early on, my patients' journey and their experience in their healthcare became very important to me. I wanted to make sure that they were getting the quality of care they needed, and the questions were getting answered. Because it was clear to me as we did those things, their health outcomes were better in the long run.

Host: Sure. Yeah, it's really interesting. And of course, we're all patients, right? So, you started out as a nurse, but you're a patient, I'm a patient, we're all patients, right? So, let's talk about the patient experience and what that means at Southern New Hampshire Health, and how does the Walk With Me Initiative sort of fit into that vision?

Rebecca Cooper-Piela: I think all of our teams, you know, myself and all the teams that work here are passionate about giving great patient care. They want to make sure that they're hearing their patients' voices and incorporating all their needs into that care. So, Walk With Me really thinks and talks about the journey of the patient.

We're fortunate enough to have a multi-system here. We have primary care providers, we have specialists in our multi-specialty clinics, Foundation Medical Partners, and we have an outstanding medical center. We want to make sure that we're caring for that patient anywhere from the office setting over to the hospital, back to the offices, and that we're really wrapping our arms around all of their needs and making sure we're addressing anything that they'd like to ensure they connect with their healthcare.

Host: Yeah. And you say wrapping your arms around, and I'm sort of picturing that. I'm like, all right, "Well, she probably means that figuratively," but maybe sometimes literally, of course, with patients and families. So then, what's the ultimate goal of Walk With Me for the community and the healthcare team?

Rebecca Cooper-Piela: That we want to make sure that our patient’s journey is seamless across the health system, and that we're meeting all the healthcare needs of the community. And we do that in a way that makes sense for our patients. We're on that journey with them to support them, to walk side by side with them in any of their needs.

You know, as we come in to get healthcare, those are challenging spaces for folks. Sometimes there's information or diagnoses that people are hearing. Things can be very anxiety-provoking. We want to make sure we're there to support and that we have all the things that are necessary for the patients. So, some patients might do really well with verbal information. Some folks need that information in writing, and we're making sure we're getting that to them in the after-visit summary.

Sometimes it might even be how they're accessing their services. You know, it's confusing to get around your campus, "I don't know where to park or how to get to the office," and that's anxiety-provoking for me. Sometimes it's making sure that they have education about a procedure or even what it might be like for childbirth, so that they're prepared and that decreases their anxiety around any of the care that they're receiving, and that they know we're here for the questions or whatever they might need in this process.

Host: Yeah, that makes so much sense. I'm thinking about my local hospital and how the many entrances, there are so many entrances. And don't go in the west entrance if you need to go here. You need to go there. And it is confusing, right? And we do have lots of questions, and it's great to know that the team there is prepared to answer them. And I want to get into the origin story a little bit, if you will. Like, what inspired the creation of Walk With Me and the campaign, and just how did it come to life?

Rebecca Cooper-Piela: So, we know that patient experience is important as part of what we do as a health system. We, of course, measure our satisfaction surveys and how people are responding to us. But we really were thinking very deeply as a team about how to engage our own members of our healthcare system so that they can relate to their journey of taking care of patients and resonate with how important this is and the job that they're doing, how much value it brings to our patients and our community.

So, we were talking together with some of my team members, and I thought, you know, the wonderful thing about our healthcare system is that we have primary care, we have specialty care, we have a hospital. And I really said, you know, we're walking side by side with our patients. And so, when we started to think about that, we coined Walk With Me.

Host: Yeah. I love things like that where we're just talking, and we're strategizing, and we're saying words out loud. And then, it literally is like that light bulb moment, right? We're like, "Wait. Yeah, we're walking with our patients literally, figuratively," you know? So, how about Walk With Me, right? What a great campaign.

Rebecca Cooper-Piela: Absolutely. Our teams, our staff have resonated with it. It makes sense to them in the care that they're delivering and the interactions that they're having with patients.

Host: Yeah. And, of course, you want to get that buy-in from the staff, from the healthcare team. Let's talk about, in a practical sense, like a day-to-day experience, tell us about Walk With Me, how it makes a difference for patients, and maybe you could share a story or an example.

Rebecca Cooper-Piela: So, what we started to focus on is three real specific areas this year. And then, we'll expand as we go forward in time. So, our first initiative around Walk With Me is called By My Side. So, that means that anybody on our campus, if we're seeing a family member or a patient, our job is to make sure that we can actually not give directions, "Go left. Go right," you know, "Go four quarters down." Instead, "Let us take you there. So, let's physically walk you to that location," which is kind of symbolic of your whole journey around healthcare, with us guiding you across the process. But this is the physical, "Let me get you to where you need to be."

You know, we received some feedback from a patient in a patient satisfaction survey that specifically reached out to us and shared what a challenging appointment she was coming for, around preparation for a surgical procedure, and how exceptionally anxious she was; she actually got lost in the hospital, and reached out for assistance. And one of our team members met her, greeted her, walked with her, but also actually called the practice because she was now running late. And she was quite concerned that she was actually going to miss that appointment. And this had been a significant concern for her that she needed to address. She was concerned that if she missed that appointment, she didn't know if she'd have to wait again to see someone. Would that defer her to an additional waiting list to have her concerns addressed and her needs met?

And so, our team member was able to actually reach out to the practice. They were aware she was coming, ready to receive her when she arrived. No need to reschedule. And we were able to get her to the point that she needed to be and on towards addressing those healthcare needs for herself. She found that to be very powerful in terms of feeling cared for, significantly reducing her anxiety, and then she was able to actually focus on the conversation with her provider and make sure that she was able to ask the questions she needed to ask and move forward with the care she needed to address her concern and her condition.

Host: That's great. Hospitals and medical buildings are big, confusing places. You know, when you don't work there, when you're not there every day. And I kind of noticed during COVID, it seems like we were getting a little bit more just sort of personal attention at my local hospital, and folks were taking us. They weren't calling it Walk With Me, because that's yours, of course. But it was like that. I felt like there was more personal attention. It's like, you know, "Rather than me doing a bunch of pointing and saying, 'Turn right, turn left,' and all of that, let me just take you there." And I really appreciated that as a patient. And it's continued, at least at my local hospital and obviously at Southern New Hampshire Health with Walk With Me. It makes me want to know, Rebecca, like, what's next for Walk With Me? Are there plans to expand, evolve the program, you know, that sort of thing in the coming years?

Rebecca Cooper-Piela: Absolutely. So again, you know, walking with someone and taking them to their destination is really symbolic of what we want to do for healthcare for our community. We want to walk with you. We want to be the place to take care of you, have all your care needs met, and make that a seamless journey for you and support you in that process. So, that's our higher-level vision.

You know, we'll continue to work on individual campaigns around that. We are starting to do some work with something we call Close By Care, which is very simple, but making sure that we have parking spots available for our patients near their destinations. We've done a lot of work with valet parking to make sure that patients can get to those appointments. And we started to work on Quiet Hours. We know that in the hospital at night, we may not be the most restful environment, and we recognize that it's important for our patients to heal. So, we started to really look at that through our patient experience lens, and what it is like to be a patient.

So, we're starting to work on even some welcome kits around, you know, what to expect when you're in the hospital. Maybe we need an eye mask. Maybe we need some earplugs or things to help people get rest. Looking at different protocols for vital signs that align with appropriate evidence-based care to make sure that people are actually getting optimal rest in addition to all the other evidence-based high-tech care that we're delivering.

We're also looking at a process to nominate our care teams for excellence in care of Walk With Me. We call that Compassion In Action, and we're really looking for our patient voice in that area. We're working with our Patient Family Advisory Committee for additional feedback. And we continue to always look for our patients' feedback through our surveys and through letters. That voice matters so much to us, and we take that information and continue to feed that back into our programs to try to optimize our experience and our care for our patients.

Host: That's great. Yeah. You know, Rebecca, so many of us are on a healthcare journey, if you will, right? Whether it's us or family members, friends, whomever, and being on these journeys that we're all on, the journey of life, the journey of healthcare, getting better, all of that. Just the notion, the campaign, having the folks at Southern New Hampshire Health walk with folks literally and figuratively. It's just such a simple but beautiful idea and campaign, and putting it into practice and looking to expand. Really appreciate your time today.

Rebecca Cooper-Piela: Thank you. Very excited to talk about this. Very, very passionate about what this means for our patients and the care we want to deliver to them. I appreciate the opportunity to chat with you today, Scott.

Host: And for more information, go to snhhealth.org. And if you enjoyed this podcast, please be sure to tell a friend and share on social media. This is On Call with Southern New Hampshire Health. I'm Scott Webb. Stay well, and we'll talk again next time.