Patient Experience

At Children’s Mercy we strive to provide the best possible experience.

Our guiding force behind every interaction with patients and families is summed up with this mantra, ‘Consistently exceed the experience expectations of those we serve.’ We strive to offer the highest quality medical care, and at the same time, deliver a positive patient and family experience. That’s why patient experience is a True North Pillar of our organization.

How we measure the patient and family experience

We are intentional about measuring patient and family experience, as opposed to patient and family satisfaction. We ask for feedback from our patients and families and use the information to do more of what we do well and improve areas where we can do better. An independent vendor is used to send surveys through text, email and phone call about a child and family’s experience. This allows Children’s Mercy to compare ourselves to other leading children’s hospitals across the country.

What we do with the survey results

We receive more than 1500 survey results every week, and carefully review the scores and comments we get from patients and families. Every single comment is read by staff in the Office of Patient Experience, extracting high-level themes, trends, and opportunities. Those survey results and comments are shared at all levels of our hospital, so we can be proactive about improving our services to patients and families. The survey results also help us understand if families would recommend Children’s Mercy to their friends and family. This ‘loyalty’ question tells us if we’re consistently exceeding expectations, or if there are gaps in our service which need improving.

Examples of how we have used results from our patient and family experience survey include:

• Improvements to accessible parking system-wide.
• Installation of family accessible restrooms in multiple locations.
• Expansion of food service menu offerings.
• Follow-up with families to address individual concerns when necessary.
• Escalation of improvement opportunities to the appropriate leadership.

Other ways we incorporate patient and family feedback to improve our process

In addition to sharing survey results with leadership and hospital teams, the Office of Patient Experience engages over 200 Patient Family Advisors and works with over 20 Patient Family Advisory Councils (PFACs) to improve the quality, safety, and delivery of care. These advisors and councils offer the family perspective as they collaborate and partner with teams across the hospital system.

Quarterly Net Promoter Score responses

Children’s Mercy patient experience – Net Promoter Score® (NPS)

The Net Promoter Score is measured directly from the question in our survey, ”How likely would you be to recommend this facility to your family and friends?” We know perfection is impossible, but we continue to strive for all ‘9’ and ‘10’ values for this rating. To better understand where we faltered in meeting expectations, we also ask our patients and families to rate other aspects of the experience.