Thank you to everyone who attended the first Patient Experience Summit: Transforming Healthcare through Empathy and Innovation, on Tuesday and Wednesday May 25-26, 2010 at the Intercontinental Hotel & Conference Center in Cleveland. There was an overwhelming response to this event, sponsored by the Office of Patient Experience in partnership with GE, with over 600 attendees. Attendees came from all over the country, from California to Maine, as well as from Abu Dhabi and Canada.

The dialogue was very stimulating and the initial feedback has been very positive. We had some great discussions about empathy and what it means to the future of healthcare. We heard from entertainer Siegfried Fischbacher who shared his perspective as a caregiver for his partner Roy Horn via a satellite interview with Larry Ruvo from Keep Memory Alive and the Cleveland Clinic Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health in Las Vegas.

We had a lively discussion between nursing leaders Patricia Benner, PhD, RN and Jean Watson, PhD, RN and James B. Young, MD, about empathy as a differentiator and the importance of relationship-centered care. "When you're very ill, you're not a consumer or a customer, you're a vulnerable, fearful human being with emotions," Benner said. Dr. Young stressed the need to bring the nursing and physician professions closer together in practice.

We heard from two former Cleveland Clinic patients, Scott Simon from NPR, who said "Healthcare providers take care of the patient's family almost as much as they take care of the patient," and Charity Tillemann-Dick, a 26-year-old double-lung transplant patient and opera singer who said, "There were many people who watched over me while in the hospital," before she sang a beautiful rendition of "Someone to Watch Over Me," dedicated to her healthcare team.

Additional topics included the business of patient experience, customer service as a differentiator, the importance of architecture and art in the healing process and changing the employee culture to impact the patient experience.

Attendees were asked to continue the patient experience discussion by joining in the creation of the first Association for Patient Experience. For more information about the Association, contact Toya Gorley at gorleyt@ccf.org.

Save the Date for 2011

Save the date now for the 2011 Empathy and Innovation Summit,
which will be held in Cleveland on May 22-24, 2011.