How Can I Help featuring Dr. Rachel Hitt

The medical drama, New Amsterdam, features Dr. Max Goodwin as the new Medical Director for one America’s oldest public hospitals. Max strives to do something that seems oddly revolutionary – put patients first. Among his first acts to impact patient experience are to eliminate the Emergency Department waiting room and to bring healthy food into the hospital. Throughout the series, he attempts radical changes to help patients have better experiences in the hospital and better health outcomes.

But improving patient experience doesn’t have to start with firing entire departments or upending every single process in a hospital. In fact, it begins with simply with how patients are treated by healthcare professionals. Communication and empathy are building blocks to a better patient experience, says Dr. Rachel Hitt. And as the Medical Director of Patient Experience for the Tufts Medical Integrated Network, she’s championing a different approach to patient relationships.

We discuss:

• Why the relationship with patients is crucial in medicine
• How business practices often create barriers in healthcare
• How technology can both help and hinder patient interactions
• The essential skill to delivering difficult news
• How active listening can improve patient outcomes

Connect with Rachel on LinkedIn

Music courtesy of Big Red Horse