Picker Institute has embarked on a new initiative aimed at significantly elevating the standard for the optimal patient experience in healthcare organizations throughout the United States. The new standard establishes an expectation that certain elements of the patient experience should happen for all patients all of the time. The term “always events” plays opposite to the well-known patient safety‚ ‘never events’ developed by the National Quality Forum (NQF) and adopted by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) to indicate occurrences that should never happen in the delivery of healthcare services. Always Events refer to aspects of the patient experience that are so important to patients and families that healthcare providers should always get them right. This refreshing focus on the positive is one of the program’s greatest strengths.
The correlation with never events is not simply a semantic one; recent research is building a compelling case for the relationship between patient experience, quality and patient safety. Performance on patient surveys has been correlated with organizational patient safety culture, readmission rates, and mortality. Even in the absence of these relationships, however, the Picker Institute believes patient-centered care is vitally important in its own right. Without effective partnerships with patients and families, characterized by mutual respect and inclusion in the care process, true healing cannot occur. Through the Always Events Initiative, the Picker Institute is calling the healthcare system to a higher standard and committing to providing the tools and resources that organizations need to sustain a new level of performance.
This paper describes the rapid evolution of the Always Events initiative, highlights the unique features that distinguish this program, and provides guidance on how organizations can begin using Always Events today to improve the patient experience and to support a culture that continuously views care through the patient’s eyes. A companion paper describes in more detail the many Always Events currently being implemented in forty grantee organizations across the country. The goals of the Always Events program are ambitious, but working together, these goals can be achieved. The Picker Institute invites you to join the growing community of organizations using Always Events to build the kind of healthcare system that not only every patient deserves, but that every provider feels privileged to work within.
Click here to read the first Always Events® White Paper: Creating an
Optimal Patient Experience.
The healthcare system is beginning to return to its roots in patient- and family-centered care. The vast majority of today’s healthcare leaders recognize patient-centered care as a priority, but a sincere desire to improve is often thwarted by seemingly insurmountable barriers, not the least of which is deciding where to start. Innovations occur every day, but dissemination of these practices is limited. Patient-centered care is undoubtedly improving, but far too slowly. A new approach is necessary to galvanize rapid widespread improvement.
In response to this challenge, the Picker Institute has embarked on a new initiative aimed at significantly elevating the standard for the optimal patient experience in healthcare organizations throughout the United States. The new standard establishes an expectation that certain elements of the patient experience, Always Events®, are so important to patients and families that healthcare providers should always get them right. Through the Always Events initiative, the Picker Institute is calling the healthcare system to a higher standard and is accompanying that call to action with a commitment to providing the tools and resources that organizations need to sustain this new level of performance.
This idea guide is one of those resources. It highlights some of the tools developed and preliminary lessons learned by the organizations that have received grants to implement one or more Always Events. It also describes ways that any organization with an interest in improving the patient experience can get involved. A companion paper, Always Events®: Creating an Optimal Patient Experience? describes the evolution of the program.
Click HERE to read the Second Always Events® White Paper: Always Events for Communication and Care Transitions- Idea Guide.