Episcopal Health Services (EHS) has been awarded by Planetree International with the Certification for Excellence in Person-Centered Care for its achievement and innovation in the delivery of person-centered care.
The Planetree Certification distinguishes itself from other health care quality awards through its main focus on person-centered care, a model of care delivery in which health care professionals partner with patients and families to identify and satisfy the full range of patient needs and preferences.
“The experience of EHS shows what can be accomplished when a team of deeply committed, supremely innovative and highly-driven caregivers take the courageous leap to redefine priorities and reorganize systems to put patients first,” Planetree International President Michael Giuliano said.
A variety of factors are taken into account in giving out this award, including performance improvement on traditional quality indicators, review of policy documents and how patients and staff assess the person-centered culture of an organization.
EHS is one of just 40 organizations around the world to earn this certification at the Silver level. A series of focus groups were conducted with patients and their loved ones, as well as staff members from various disciplines and divisions within an organization, to determine which ones were worthy of the Silver level certification. In the case of EHS, the discussions with the patients and their family members and the staff members attested to a genuine culture of person-centered care.
“Planetree awards Silver Certification in Person-Centered Care to celebrate organizations’ progress along the culture change journey,” Giuliano said. “In this spirit, we look forward to witnessing how the team at EHS builds on this achievement to take its commitment to delivering person-centered care to even greater heights.”
This was not the first time that EHS earned the designation from Planetree International. The hospital had previously received it in 2021.
“This redesignation demonstrates that the patient and family voices continue to be systematically integrated into how care is delivered at EHS,” EHS Chief Patient Experience Officer Edison Bond Jr., MPH, MDiv, DMin, EdD, CPXP, ACTCP, said. “From how feedback is collected and analyzed to how teams communicate and make care decisions, we have built processes that keep the experience aligned with what matters most to patients and families.”
The criteria that EHS satisfied reflect what those in the focus groups said mattered most to them in a healthcare experience. The data collection process was also in line with the National Academy of Medicine’s growing evidence base for person-centered care. Among the components addressed for a person-centered healthcare experience were the quality of patient-provider interactions, access to information, family involvement and the physical environment of care. Additionally, a focus was also placed on how the organization supports its staff, opportunities for the staff, patients and families to have a voice in the way care is delivered and the ways that an organization is reaching beyond its walls to care for its community.
Representatives from Planetree International visited EHS, located at 327 Beach 19th St. in Far Rockaway, to assess the hospital as part of the certification process. Additionally, a review was done on EHS’s performance on patient experience and quality of care measures, and how the measurement of these indicators improves organizational outcomes. The representatives’ impression from the hospital visit, along with the comments provided by patients and their families and the EHS staff members, validated that specific person-centered policies were in place.
For more than 45 years, the not-for-profit Planetree International has been at the forefront of the movement to transform healthcare from the perspective of patients.
