In this section:

Strategies

Delivering proactive, compassionate care, communicating clearly and helping consumers navigate each step of their healthcare journey strengthens trust, improves health outcomes and lowers readmissions and costs.

To enhance consumers' experience with Texas Health, we:

• Provide caregivers with extensive tools and training, and host quarterly meetings to share and discuss evidence-based strategies for improving the consumer experience.
• Deliver culturally inclusive care that is sensitive to an individual's cultural identity or heritage, language, beliefs and religious background.
• Gather information to fully understand consumers' medical histories, health needs and the best ways to care for them. This helps us to better tailor care plans, address questions and reduce their anxiety.
• Improve their understanding of health conditions, treatment and discharge instructions by communicating more equitably, such as offering information and resources in multiple languages.
• Help them feel safe and comfortable in a clean, quiet, well-maintained environment of care.

2021 Highlights

• Invested in additional ways to improve the consumer experience by:
  • Advancing our interpreter services to include Voyce, a video interpreter service. Communication can be a challenge with more than 100 languages spoken in North Texas. We use an on-demand interpreter service that accesses 50 video languages, 200 audio languages, and American Sign Language to communicate vital information. The service is being used across our hospital system and in Texas Health Breeze Urgent Care™ clinics.
  • Trialing a new voice recognition technology to improve face-to-face interactions between Texas Health Physicians Group providers and patients. Using ambient clinical intelligence, an AI-powered technology, the tool can "listen" in on discussions and automate medical transcription, note-taking and documentation. This reduces the amount of time spent charting and strengthens the provider-patient connection.
  • Creating food guides to illustrate healthy food choices for individuals participating in our diabetes education programs. By showcasing nutritious foods that appeal to culturally diverse populations, consumers can make meal choices that improve their health.

Measurement

We evaluate the consumer experience in various ways to monitor overall performance and determine where refinements are needed. We use:

• Nationally standardized surveys designed by the Centers for Medicare® & Medicaid Services® and the Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (CAHPS®) survey, which rates consumer experiences with hospitals, healthcare providers and more. Surveys are specific to care settings, such as inpatient, emergency departments, medical practices or ambulatory surgery centers.
• Tools that assess psychological variables, such as aptitude, intelligence and personality.
• Text messaging to gather quick feedback.

2021 Highlights

• Began using Net Promotor Scores to measure consumer loyalty on a scale of -100 to 100. The survey asks consumers how likely they are to recommend Texas Health or Texas Health Physicians Group to a friend or colleague. We achieved our goal of top-quartile experience with Texas Health Physicians Group (THPG) and are pursuing the same goal systemwide. Please see our 2021 Social Purpose Summary Report for data on consumer experience measures.
• Earned Press Ganey's 2021 Guardian of Excellence award at Texas Health Harris Methodist Hospital Stephenville for achieving a 95th percentile rating in the Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems Outpatient and Ambulatory Surgery Survey (OAS CAHPS) survey. Texas Health Harris Methodist Hospital Southlake and Texas Health Center for Diagnostics and Surgery also were honored for achieving a 95th percentile rating for inpatient and Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems survey performance.