POSITION SUMMARY

Under the direction of the Manager of Patient Experience, the Patient Advocate serves as a liaison between patient, patient families and MLKCH physicians, staff and volunteers. The Patient Advocate performs detailed coordination and technical work related to the timely and thorough review and resolution of complex complaints/grievances and prepares them for review by committees. He/she effectively interfaces and collaborates with leadership, providers, and staff to clearly identify causes of complex situations, which may include clinical quality, access, interdisciplinary communication, and the delivery of ancillary services. Using strong meeting facilitation and collaborates with all levels of the clinical and non-clinical teams to bridge disparate expectations regarding the quality /plan of care of patients, families, and clinicians. He/she will conduct regular proactive rounds throughout the hospital. The Patient Advocate is responsible for supporting the implementation of programs and processes designed to build and improve patient experience including patient-facing and non-patient-facing services and activities. The Patient Advocate will assist with hospital-wide education and training, and support department leadership in implementing a patient-centered culture of excellence.

ESSENTIAL DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES

• Reports to and support the Manager of Patient Experience and the Patient Excellence Steering Committee
• Performs daily and weekly rounds to ensure clinical and service excellence, gathers patient feedback regarding HCAHPS indicators
• Proactively captures complaints and grievances, performing service recovery, monitoring, investigating, reporting out to leadership, and ensuring timely responses in line with CMS guidelines
• Facilitates resolution of complaints/grievances for patients and/or patient representative/agent across the enterprise.
• Promotes a culture of accountability with clear structures and protocol for processing and responding to all types of complaints and grievances.
• Collaboratively implement and streamline the use of AIDET, LEARN service recovery model, and grievance escalation process among all clinical and ancillary staff members and leadership.
• Works closely with Risk Management and Quality on non-patient and patient issues that occur enterprise wide.
• Collaborates with Marketing Department to respond to complaints or negative blogs on web pages and the internet, taking ownership of the NarrativeDx platform as basis to improving patient perception of service.
• Collaborates with Physicians, Nursing, Clinical Social Workers, Case Management and Spiritual Care to provide support and direction for patients according to need.
• Serves across the enterprise as a primary resource for staff and faculty education related to complaint and grievances processes and ensures the most positive outcome possible which maximizes patient satisfaction, minimizes liability risks and complies with internal and external regulations.
• Assist with the development and implementation of programs and initiatives to increase patient engagement and satisfaction, including hospital-wide HCAHPS initiatives.
• Collaborate with Patient Experience team members to capture service-recovered incidences, ensure satisfaction on identified resolution, and provide education on patient satisfaction survey administered upon discharge.
• Identify internal and external patient and family exceptional experience best practices
• Meets monthly with department leaders in order to monitor performance and growth of programs and initiatives, ensure standardization and identify best practices.
• Ensure the development and deployment of communication plans to assure widespread understanding, support and informed application of customer service standards and processes
• Develop recommendations regarding the implementation of complaint resolution and management, as well as service recovery processes and systems
• Assist in various staff and physician training programs, including patient experience, communication and service recovery techniques, and ensure all attendance is appropriately tracked and updated.
• Identifies opportunities to collaborate with various departments to develop and implement a broader range of opportunities for volunteers to provide extraordinary care to patients and families.
• Provides administrative support to Volunteer Services
• Performs other related duties as assigned or requested such as new employee orientation, volunteer orientation, and Bi- Annual Report