Patient Relations Specialist

Summary

The Patient Relations Specialist serves as a liaison between patients, families, visitors, and the hospital's clinical and non-clinical staff. The Specialist assists patients in understanding hospital policies, procedures, services, and obtaining solutions to problems and concerns. This position functions as the mechanism for investigating and responding to patient complaints and grievances. They guide leaders and staff in gaining awareness of patient’s perceptions of the hospital experience and implement effective strategies to improve patient perception of care and reduce complaints. This position is designed to strengthen, personalize, and enhance relationships between the patient and the organization by working closely with the hospital team to support the goal of quality and patient satisfaction. Assisting the Director in analytics with KPIs and metrics at an advanced level to ensure lasting change in the organization and performance improvement.

Essential Functions and Responsibilities Include the Following:

Provides services to ensure patients’ understanding of Patient Rights and Hospital Policy and Protocol Investigates and facilitates resolution of quality of care concerns/complaints/grievances for all patients and families/visitors by engaging with their healthcare providers. Works collaboratively with the healthcare team in clarifying issues, and promoting prompt and caring resolution of patient/family concerns. Works independently to manage complaint cases from initial contact, through appropriate documentation, investigation, resolution, and response to the patient or family member, ensuring grammatical accuracy, within the established standards and policies, including referrals to and from Risk Management. Documents patient/visitor concerns, compliments, comments, and suggestions to include demographic data, synopsis of incident, actions taken to resolve and outcome; inputs information into database. Provides complaint process oversight and responds to escalated concerns as necessary. Requests and reviews medical records, notes, and/or detailed bills as appropriate; formulates conclusions per protocol and other business partners to determine response; assures timeliness and appropriateness of responses Educates staff, patients and patient families about the rights of patients in accordance with Federal, State and Regulatory agencies. Works within the interdisciplinary care team to support timely communication of member issues or needs and monitors screening of members effectively to improve quality and cost outcomes Requires advance emotional intelligence in order to find the root cause of dissatisfaction Assist units with de-escalation techniques, assess unit's needs in conjunction with anger management.del Coordinates interventions/services with multiple departments including Finance, Quality, and Risk Management. Identifies system related problems, via patient/visitor data, and works collaboratively with physicians, administrators, managers, and staff to improve process. Assists in the development and presentation of patient rights, customer service, and service recovery training data. Participates and/or chairs committees, work groups, and/or process improvement teams. Makes periodic rounds, communicating with patients and staff regarding needs and expectations. Assess, meets or exceed customer needs and expectations using appropriate resources within the system and provide service recovery. Mediation in family meetings with treatment team and families. Maintains collaborative working relationship with others. Initiates or assists with efforts to improve the value of services by improving processes and reducing costs. Refers patients, families and visitors to appropriate services and resources, and responds personally with innovative solutions when other alternatives are not available. Follows up on referrals from administration, leadership, medical staff, and volunteer patient advocates regarding the patients perception of care or services. Coordinates and communicates with staff and patients/families regarding lost items. Assists with coordinating interpreter services according to CMS/DOH/ADA regulations and Joint Commission guidelines, educates staff, ensures and monitors usage Prepare reports and communicate with department managers/ senior administration on regular basis. Assists with reports for Performance Improvement. Identify system issues/trends; make recommendations; and assist in resolutions and opportunities for improvement in service delivery. Participate in the development of policies and procedures related to patient rights and satisfaction. Provide accurate and complete documentation regarding the investigation process; i.e. subjective data; objective data; assessment; and resolution. Participate on committees, work groups, and/or process improvement teams that improve patient/customer satisfaction. Advanced level of medical terminatory in order to assist with health literacy standards Advanced knowledge of all hospital policies, protocols, and procedures Ability to de-escalate high conflict situations and mitigate risk and public exposure Assists in Quality Assurance of documentation and other regulatory components. Assists with supervision of Volunteers. Demonstrated ability to build relationships with patient advocacy groups, professional associations and expert stakeholders Ensure that all initiatives are well organized and adhere to accepted professional standards as established by federal, state and regulatory guidelines. Ability to work effectively with cross functional and leadership teams to achieve collective goals Collaborates with site-based leadership to promote and sustain patient relations strategic plan. Supports inter-departmental functions to provide optimal patient and customer experience. Fosters and maintains relationships with key stakeholder leaders and teams to ensure patient and family centered care culture, care delivery and hospitality Supports the development, implementation and evaluation of patient/customer experience-based programs, projects and improvements Demonstrates basic understanding of how to collect and interpret patient experience feedback, data and performance metrics Collaborates with site-based leadership to promote and sustain patient experience strategic plan Coordinates educational and training programs aimed at engaging team members in patient/customer experience culture. Provides emotional support to patients, families, visitors and team members (ie during rounding, phone calls and/or other interactions Performs service recovery, follows policies/procedures regarding concern and complaint management, escalates to leadership, when appropriate Operates under general guidance and work assignments are varied in complexity and may require interpretation and independent decisions on course of action Project management and reporting skills, with the ability to manage multiple projects simultaneously Excellent verbal and written communication skills Demonstrated awareness of the issues of diversity and inclusion Confident personal presence, with skills in public speaking and experience managing and hosting live activities/programs Adheres to WPH Performance Standards, behaviors, rules, regulations, and policies of WPH and regulatory requirements including issues that pertain to Patient Rights. Function as the back up to the Director as the primary liaison for members of leadership for any case related issues. Weekend and shift coverage as needed. Performs all the functions of a Patient Relations Coordinator. Performs all other related duties as assigned.

Education & Experience Requirements

Bachelor’s Degree in related field with 3 years of experience within a healthcare facility required. Certificate in Patient Advocacy required or obtained within 6 months of hire. Master’s degree in healthcare-related field preferred. Proficient in excel, word, PowerPoint (Microsoft office suite)

Core Competencies

Requires excellent communication and people skills, impeccable grammar and writing abilities, attention to detail, ability to work independently, organize and able to set priorities; knowledge of patient rights and regulatory requirements; demonstrates awareness of determining patient care of all age groups; conflict resolution techniques; ability to maintain composure under stress, a systems approach to problem solving; public relations principles; death and dying/grieving process; advanced understanding of medical terminology; hospital operations, policies and procedures; community resources; advanced understanding of department and hospital safety practices and policies; infection control practices and policies; department and hospital emergency response policies and procedures; proficient computer skills.

Physical/Mental Demands/Requirements & Work Environment

May be exposed to chemicals necessary to perform required tasks. Any hazardous chemicals the employee may be exposed to are listed in the hospital’s SDS (Safety Data Sheet) data base and may be accessed through the hospital’s Intranet site (Employee Tools/SDS Access). A copy of the SDS data base can also be found at the hospital switchboard, saved on a disc.

Primary Population Served

Check appropriate box(s) below:

â˜Neonatal (birth – 28 days)

â˜Patients with exceptional communication needs

â˜Infant (29 days – less than 1 year)

â˜Patients with developmental delays

â˜Pediatric (1 – 12 years)

â˜Patients at end of life

â˜Adolescent (13 – 17 years)

â˜Patients under isolation precautions

â˜Adult (18 – 64 years)

â˜Patients with cultural needs

â˜Geriatric (> 65 years)

â˜All populations

â˜Bariatric Patients with weight related comorbidities

☠Non-patient care population

The responsibilities and tasks outlined in this job description are not exhaustive and may change as determined by the needs of White Plains Hospital.

The salary range and/or hourly rate listed is a good faith determination of potential base compensation that may be offered to a successful applicant for this position at the time of this job advertisement and may be modified in the future. When determining a team member's base salary and/or rate, several factors may be considered as applicable (e.g., location, specialty, service line, years of relevant experience, education, credentials, negotiated contracts, budget and internal equity).

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