
This blog explores how the environment of care influences the patient's experience and staff well-being, with a focus on how sound, visual atmosphere, pacing, and sensory load shape healing and outcomes in healthcare settings. Topics include patient safety and satisfaction, hospital noise, nurse wellness, HCAHPS, sleep, and much more. Our goal is to share practical insights to help you create environments that heal.
April 18, 2014
Violence, anger, sarcasm, personal attacks, public acts of ridicule, and hate have been portrayed by the news media and entertainment industry in ways that have rendered us insensitive to the
Read more >April 11, 2014
Coming from the rich experience at the Beryl Institute Patient Experience Conference this past week, I want to share some of my own takeaways. We heard from so many wonderful
Read more >April 4, 2014
Ageism is alive and well in healthcare. In fact, as a “boomer,” many journalists have made great efforts to tell me how I am going to age, how much money
Read more >March 21, 2014
It’s time that we move from hypothesizing about the ideal patient experience to actually taking personal responsibility for making it happen. But how do you start? Here are five simple
Read more >March 7, 2014
In all of the writings about the patient experience, few ask the foundational question, “What matters?” While ambiguous and global, this question is primary to any experience as it defines
Read more >January 3, 2014
The end of a year begs for reflection and projection, for regrets and resolutions, and for ways to start over — even if what happened last year continues into the
Read more >September 10, 2013
Great question. Great pun, too. However, in the current period of HCAHPS, patient engagement, employee engagement, patient satisfaction, without a mission, how can you ever reasonably expect to provide quality healthcare? And, I am not referring to the mission that is well framed and mounted in your administration office or hung in the lobby.
Read more >September 6, 2013
Many of you know that I am a jazz harpist. But what you may not know is moving from classical to jazz was one of the most stressful, risky processes
Read more >August 16, 2013
When I was a child, I had bad dreams — dreams that would wake me up. I’d go into my Mom’s room and she would walk me back to bed.
Read more >July 12, 2013
Having just spent 10 days in the hospital with E. coli, enteritis, acute colitis, a urinary tract infection, and septicemia, I have great tales to tell about my patient experience.
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