PITTSBURGH – Two UPMC groups received awards from Press Ganey, an organization dedicated to health care performance improvement.

Presented annually, the Guardian of Excellence Award honors organizations that consistently sustained performance in the top 5 percent of all Press Ganey clients for each reporting period over one year in the areas of patient experience, employee engagement, physician engagement and clinical quality.

Consisting of 32 physicians, Renaissance Family Practice UPMC (RFP) was recognized for its performance in the category of patient satisfaction. This achievement places the practice in the 95th percentile or above, an honor given to a limited number of organizations nationwide each year.

RFP formed in 1995 as a union of six private primary care offices. The original 25 physicians were committed to delivering the highest quality of health care and to educate future generations of physicians though the UPMC St. Margaret Family Medicine Residency Program. 

In 2008, RFP joined the UPMC Primary Care network and has maintained the UPMC culture as a well-respected neighborhood practice that cares for multiple generations of families. RFP has been viewed as one of the highest quality primary care practices by its patients, UPMC and the medical community. Every year, many of RFP’s physicians are named “Best Doctors” by Pittsburgh Magazine, affirming their commitment to their patients and to high quality, patient-centered health care.

“We believe in a team-oriented approach to patient care. Cultivating the relationship that patients have with our practice – from the person that greets them upon arrival, to the nurse who helps them feel at home, to the physician who treats each patient as an individual – is at the heart of the excellent clinical quality and patient satisfaction,” said Eric Frankel, M.D., president of RFP. “Our physicians and 90+ team members partner with patients from birth throughout their lifetime. We offer access to care seven days a week, through scheduled and walk-in appointments. We see patients in the outpatient, inpatient, skilled nursing and home settings. We have physicians specially trained in geriatrics, pediatrics, psychiatry and sports medicine.”

UPMC Passavant was named a 2018 Press Ganey Success Story Award® winner for dedication to the patient experience, reducing patient suffering and improving the quality and safety of care.

This award recognizes those who have demonstrated innovation and leadership to measurably improve patient experience, clinical quality, safety or caregiver engagement. Recipients are selected from among the stories submitted to the Press Ganey Annual Call for National Client Conference and Success Story submissions.

The Emergency Department (ED) setting is unpredictable. Visits can surge during peak times, bottlenecks occur during the entire visit process, and therefore can drive up wait times and negatively impact patient satisfaction. In 2012, there were challenges with perceptions of the care being provided reflecting in patient satisfaction scores <50th percentile. UPMC Passavant leadership understood the connection between staff engagement and outcomes and knew the strategy needed to be multi-faceted. 

An interprofessional team was formed to look at things from the patient’s perspective. Factors such as signage from the street, understanding where to go upon arrival, the registration and triage process, as well as looking at external processes such as imaging and laboratory and the admission and/or discharge process were evaluated. Engaging those that do the work and make the change was the best way to collaborate and facilitate the change.

“The collaborative process that was put in place dramatically increased patient satisfaction, with arrival to room time decreasing from 17 minutes to 5 minutes, arrival to provider time went from 40 minutes to 12 minutes, and patient experience rating the hospital as a 9-10 changed from <50th percentile to the 90th percentile. Additionally, employee turnover at implementation was more than 20 percent, and currently is at 7 percent,” said Betsy Tedesco, D.N.P., R.N., C.E.N., P.H.R.N., Unit Director, Emergency Department, UPMC Passavant McCandless Campus.