Tune in now to the latest Moments Move Us episode with Rhonda Brandon, SVP and Chief Human Resources Officer at Duke University Health System 🎧
Wambi has been named one of “Best Fit” Mental Health Services & Solutions by ANA\California.
Real-time recognition is the driving force of the Wambi platform. Our holistic solution impacts patients, frontline staff, and every member of your organization.
Our innovative employee recognition solution leverages gamification to positively transform the employee experience. Calculate your ROI, explore data insights, and read more about our success stories.
New Podcast Episode:
Rise & Lead with Rhonda Brandon
Written by Dr. Bonnie Clipper, DNP, MA, MBA, RN, CENP, FACHE, Chief Clinical Officer at Wambi
Shaping culture and outcomes in healthcare takes time and effort–there is no shortcut! Organizational change comes from strategy that involves everything from patient experience and staff engagement to offering meaningful recognition and building resilience in your teams. However, a 43-bed surgical unit in a Magnet-designated, acute care hospital discovered a novel approach to make this an easier feat: using the Wambi platform.
Upper Chesapeake Medical Center obtains real-time recognition and feedback from patients and their families through Wambi to gather insightful patient experience data prior to the HCAHPS surveys. This allows leaders to share timely recognition with their team members as well as identify and address opportunities for improvement in the moment. This creates a dual cultural shift.
Since data is harvested in real-time from patients and their families, UCH leaders can monitor trends and immediately facilitate the behavior changes needed to turn a downward data trend in the right direction. This type of visibility and chance at course correction is a powerful new opportunity for strong performance on the HCAHPS survey, while also helping to shape culture.
A patient shared this message in Wambi about a member of the UCH care staff:
“I listened as he talked to my roommate who is very confused. He calmed her down and treated her as if she were his own mother. Truly a fine young man who does a great job.”
This comment was instantly viewed by UCH leadership and was immediately shared with the staff member as acknowledgement of a job well done. Comments like these can provide clues to leaders as to whether care and service are on track. Plus, when positive comments are shared with the team members who provided the care, it is a big morale boost. “It makes us feel really good and puts some pep in our step,” said one team member. This is where the second shift is felt as the organization moves from a culture of pointing out what’s wrong, after-the-fact, to celebrating what’s exceptional, in-the-moment.
Sharing patient gratitude directly with care providers provides positive reinforcement of their good behavior; doing so regularly creates a positive feedback loop that can have a dramatic impact on the patient experience. At UCH, patient comments such as “she went out of her way to explain things to me and my wife,” or “He took his time with me and was very attentive” are regularly captured in Wambi and shared by leaders with their care teams.
For Upper Chesapeake, HCAHPS domains such “Communication with Nurses” and “Responsiveness of Staff” went up by 12.3% and 26.5% respectively and team members reported feeling more valued in their work.
These findings establish the predictive power of real-time patient feedback on the overall human experience in healthcare.
Cassandra Crowe-Jackson is the Chief Experience Officer at Sharp HealthCare with over 20 years of leadership experience in the industry. She is passionate about human connection and its power to create meaningful impact.
In this episode, Cassandra shares her best practices for daily meaningful connection with team members, as well as ways to make the most out of virtual connection.
1. Increase Your Visibility Supporting Quote Cassandra Crowe-Jackson: “We’ve been talking about leadership visibility, because even our leaders, our executive team, we’ve been told you’re working from home from now on. So how is it that you’re going to be able to connect with your team, especially, you know, in a 24/7environment? So, you know, we do have our entity or facility leadership or the CEOs and the executive teams rounding just to say to that team, ‘Thank you. I know you’re here.’ Our CEO, as a matter of fact, did midnight rounds at one of our facilities that are more heavily impacted because you think about those nurses and doctors that are working that weekend night shift. They aren’t getting a lot of human connection.”
2. Incorporate Personal Check-in’s Supporting Quote Cassandra Crowe-Jackson: “I’ve had to have a ton of virtual meetings. So when I start my virtual meetings and begin, you know, I always try to find the one question about you. It will be something more of my icebreaker in terms of, ‘What was the best thing that happened to you yesterday?’ Because that kind of stops people for a moment. Because they’re prepared to tell me all about their work and their role and what they can do to help me or what I could do to help them, but when I have taken that pulse and that beat, just to say, ‘What was the best thing that happened to you?’ Or, “What made your day?’ Or, ‘What were three things you were most grateful for yesterday?’ It kind of says, stop a moment and let’s connect here as humans first, and then we can talk business.”
3. Look for the Silver Lining Supporting Quote Cassandra Crowe-Jackson: “Now for every hour of time, you log in that says you exercise, you are contributing one meal. So they’re taking that to mean five hours of walking is one meal for four people or something like that. So it’s again saying, ‘Keep doing what you’re doing, stay healthy, but while you’re staying healthy, you’re going to be helping people eat.’ San Diego has a lot of homelessness and a lot of hungry people, as does everyone in the country, and I can see feedback in the chats about, you know, what people are doing and how they feel connected to purpose still to our, our vision and our mission.”
In collaboration with Wambi, the Gut + Science Podcast Healthcare Series hosted by Nikki Lewellen, Director of Partnerships at Wambi, highlights accomplished, people-first healthcare CEOs (and executives) that share their powerful mindsets, experiences and tools that have helped them succeed. The show encompasses all areas of human capital at work and the successful best practices that breed healthy, engaged organizations.
Moderating our first executive leadership panel of the year was CEO and Co-Founder of Wambi, Rebecca Metter. Rebecca drove an engaging discussion to uncover major themes and pivots taken in light of COVID-19 and the new processes, habits, and mindsets that will positively impact the healthcare experience in the new year. As experts on establishing outstanding care experiences, our panelists shared stories and best practices that illuminated just how critical human connection is, and will continue to be, against the backdrop of our challenging climate. As an added bonus, we heard their unique perspectives on diversity and female leadership in a high-energy conversation that brought a fresh point-of-view to the latest learnings and innovation in healthcare experience.
As CEO and Cofounder of Wambi, Rebecca Metter is focused on strengthening Wambi’s core business by combining compassion, gratitude, and recognition with leading-edge innovation. This applies to how Wambi serves its clients as well as its internal team. Rebecca wholeheartedly believes that the culture at Wambi is a reflection of the impact Wambi seeks to make on the world. Through driving toward actualizing the mission through living the Wambi values, Rebecca has led the expansion of Wambi from a home-grown solution to a nationally recognized change-maker in healthcare.
Rebecca draws on her experience from multiple disciplines, including sales, technology, marketing, and law, which provide her with the unique insight necessary to build a global technology enterprise. Her passion for business and technology have been cultivated over the course of her career with LexisNexis. where she spent eight years in a variety of roles, winning numerous awards, which culminated in leading sales for the Managed Technology Services division. Rebecca is a national speaker on millennial engagement, gamification, and recognition. She has been featured by Thrive Global sharing the importance of mindfulness in the workplace – an area Rebecca is passionate about. Rebecca grew up in Lower Merion Township, just outside Philadelphia, PA. She attended New York University and received a Bachelor of Science magna cum laude and a Juris Doctor from Rutgers University School of Law.
Wambi focuses on addressing the patient and team member experience together. One of the many things Wambi does is collect real-time patient feedback that allows leaders to quickly act on trends, recognize folks, and change direction, if necessary. Download our latest case study to learn how the utilization of Wambi served as early an indicator of improvement in HCAHPS results.
A few minutes of mindfulness sets the tone for your day. Kickstart your morning with a happy thought and a glass of water. After a glass of water, eat a meal that will give you energy for the upcoming day.
Set personal or professional goals each week or month, or even for the year, so you have something to work towards. How will you contribute?
Find things to look forward to such as a hike with friends or a safe day out. As we come out of the pandemic fog, let the travel and adventures begin!
Perhaps one of the good aspects of 2020 was our ability to learn to become more flexible. Learn to live a more agile and flexible life. Build in the ability to change plans. Flexibility also builds resilience.
2020 has taught us how precious life is and why we should celebrate more big and small “moments” of our lives.
The importance of being grateful cannot be overstated. Whether for our health, our family & friends, our jobs, or our ability to serve. Think about developing a simple “trigger” each time you wash your hands to think about what you are grateful for. Here are easy ways to practice gratitude at work.
Written by Dr. Bonnie Clipper, DNP, MA, MBA, RN, CENP, FACHE and Chief Clinical Officer at Wambi