Novant Health
In 2007, Novant Health’s leadership charted an aggressive and exciting course to create a Remarkable Patient Experience.
No one could argue in principle with their commitment.
Still, Novant Health’s challenge was to define this Remarkable Patient Experience and operationalize it across a complex healthcare system.
That system includes many locations:
- Three major regional medical centers
- Several community hospitals
- Outpatient clinics
- Physician practices
- A host of ancillary services, including one of the largest pharmacies in the Southeast
So its team contracted with us at IDEAS to assist with the massive 18-month initiative.
We needed to take comprehensive, informed steps:
- Identify the elements and attributes of this Remarkable Patient Experience
- Create a foundation story to communicate this vision
- Define and develop guidelines for consistently implementing it across all Novant Health locations
- Create training resources to ensure staff could deliver on this considerable promise
IDEAS’ Efforts for Novant Health
Our first task was to better understand Novant Health’s culture and how it influences the patient experience.
To that end, we spent three weeks observing nearly every aspect of the organization’s operations.
The effort ranged from outpatient services to hospitals across its major geographic locations, including facilities in Charlotte, Winston-Salem and coastal Brunswick.
In addition to shadowing key healthcare personnel, we conducted extensive interviews with patients, leaders, clinical personnel and nonclinical support personnel.
A distinct picture of each organizational aspect concerning the patient experience emerged from this rich narrative data.
Alongside Novant Health’s leadership team, we’re currently formulating a suite of story-based interventions, experience design guidelines and enculturation tools.
Together, these resources will help Novant Health as it makes the Remarkable Patient Experience the norm — not the exception — at every stage of the patient journey.
