Montefiore Medical Facility is a teaching hospital in New York City that mainly serves low-income patients. They have built a strong patient-centered culture via their use of Montefiore Medical Center’s hospitals, healthcare locations, and school-based clinics. They are always on the lookout for new methods to improve the services to patients they provide to their community. The hospital has offered communication and interpretation tools, particularly those aimed at non-English speakers, such as Dual smartphones and Splitters, to ensure effective communication between patients and caregivers.
Montefiore Medical Center provides care to a diverse population daily. They visit deaf, hearing impaired, or deafblind patients, as well as people with limited English proficiency (LEP), as well as their friends, family, and companions. Given the nature of this patient group, it’s clear to see why translation and interpretation services are vital. (Chase, 2010). According to Montefiore’s website, customer service assists patients and families who speak a foreign language or are challenged to communicate with their physicians and nurses. Montefiore offers free foreign language translators, sign language interpreters, United States Sign Language translation services, TTYs, enhanced phones, closed-captioned television, and other necessary assistive and auxiliary equipment (Yu & Pun, 2021). Montefiore provides interpretation services in more than 150 tongues but does not identify which languages are presently available.
Montefiore Medical Center was judged to have acceptable patient participation and communication methods, which are critical to the facility’s continued success in providing healthcare from a population-based perspective. These actions and methods benefit not only patients but also healthcare practitioners by promoting a seamless operating position. With teletypewriters, Audio Description, Communards, hearing impaired Talk, and the Pocket Talker, the hospital has attempted to involve patients in the transfer of vital messages. Additionally, the hospital has made a concerted effort to provide extensive training to its devoted personnel on the job to promote optimal patient-practitioner involvement via effective communication.
The above patient engagement and communication strategies could provide even better care if the hospital considered upgrading its patient management information system. The information management system collects data from its diverse patient portfolio and uses it to administer care from a patient-centered perspective. A patient management information system alleviates health practitioners’ difficulties in locating medical records for specific patients, which benefits the population health approach by servicing patients more quickly. Such a strategy will aid in avoiding readmissions since there is a significant correlation between community health administration and readmission reduction (Chase, 2010). Reduced readmissions result in cost savings and shorter patient wait times, allowing health practitioners to care for more individuals.
Along with the patient database, Montefiore Medical Center should use the benefits of social media in managing, engaging, and communicating vital information among patients and healthcare practitioners. The platform has been important in searching for potential patients and caregivers. As such, Montefiore Medical Center must strive to generate healthcare material accessible to a wider audience, such as statistics, slideshows, and films. Additionally, hospitals should use this channel to communicate critical research results, news, and events to their workers, clients, and the public at large (Montefiore, 2010). The social networking platform enables individuals to connect and openly communicate their health issues with others, therefore assisting others on the brink of getting similar illnesses.
Montefiore Medical Center has an abundance of educational materials, and their patient education center is available in both English and Spanish on their website. According to the psychiatry and behavioral sciences department, it has digital resources accessible in more than 50 languages. Deborah Chase reports that the Diabetes Leadership Group includes five certified diabetes educators who rotate across Montefiore Medical Group locations to give information and counseling to assist patients with self-management.
Montefiore Medical Center supports cultural sensitivity efforts by retaining staff members in intercultural competence and where to find the assets providers and patients necessitate to maintain the proper, culturally sensitive care. (Chase, 2010). The Metropolitan New York Hospital Organization and the Previously Proposed Management Coalition provide cultural competence training. This training opportunity teaches and practices cultural awareness skills that will benefit employees in their everyday job. The training Programme will discuss race, ethnic origin, religion, language, handicap, sexual orientation, and end-of-life care in a healthcare context (Sloan & Knowles, 2017). The staff understands how important it is to be sensitive to cultural differences, not just for improved treatment quality but also for legal reasons since they must provide interpretation service to the patients.
Montefiore does an excellent job overall; however, based on the information examined in the case analysis, there are some gaps. There is not enough emphasis on the younger generation, except for the asthma problem in terms of fostering communication with the patients. If more initiatives were directed at communication with the millennial population, health problems that emerge might be avoided. Suppose people can achieve the younger demographic and teach them about exercise and healthy eating habits early on. In that case, individuals can lower the incidence of diabetes in that collective as they age, as the healthier habits will now be established earlier in life. Establishing positive habits early in life would be far simpler than attempting to reverse negative behaviors in maturity.
References
Chase, D. (2010). Montefiore Medical Center: Integrated care delivery for vulnerable populations. Web.
Montefiore. (2010). Interpreting services program. Montefiore. Web.
Sloan, A., & Knowles, A. (2017). Patient engagement: qualitative narratives illustrate patient engagement behaviors. Journal Of Communication In Healthcare, 10(2), 78-87. Web.
Yu, Q., & Pun, J. (2021). Promoting Patient Engagement in Medical Informed Consent – A Qualitative Study of Chinese Doctors’ Communication Strategies. Health Communication, 1-9. Web.