MUMC+ is the academic hospital in Maastricht. Their focus is on patient-centric care. UMIO/Service Science Factory have worked together with the Care Innovation Lab of the hospital for many years now. One successful project is described below.
Challenge:
Improving their patient’s experience before, during and after treatment.
Approach:
The project team interviewed patients, visualised the patient journey and crafted a blueprint of the current situation. The blueprint of a service shows customer – employee interaction, as well as processes that support the interaction. The team furthermore used academic literature about themes such as online support groups, patient – physician interaction and effective communication. Several concepts were then developed and integrated into an over- arching implementation guideline illustrating the contribution of staff members to the patient’s experience. An example of a concept is the postcard on the right that will be sent to patients two weeks after their discharge, to remind them that the caregivers still care. The team measured the leverage of the concepts, and fully developed the most effective concepts.
Solution:
The new blueprint led to more efficient planning of meetings that have to take place before surgery, increasing the convenience for the patients. The concepts were presented to the staff of the orthopaedic department and will be fully implemented, with the potential of scaling up to other departments.