Improving the patient (pt) experience through physician engagement.

e17641 Background: At the University of Utah’s Huntsman Cancer Institute (HCI), we assess pt experience using a nationally based private survey company. Although ranking highly on the inpatient units, HCI’s outpatient clinics were at the fifth percentile nationally in 2005. Physicians were focused on academic objectives including research, teaching, clinical care, and medical outcomes. In recent years, there has been heightened interest in pt experience as a quality indicator. HCI developed novel strategies to increase physician engagement in improving pt experience. Methods: We designed interventions aimed at engaging the physicians by taking advantage of common physician traits such as being successful, competitive, scientific, and being outcomes-focused. These traits drove the interventions that were implemented including organizationally changing the traditional academic definition of success to include the patient experience, an unblinded physician ranking, and specific physician/team meetings to add...