We are the patient experience

From a smile to a surgery, every interaction between a health care worker and a patient matters.

Patient experience departments at Penn State Health medical centers help leaders and employees incorporate patient experience philosophies and best practices, oversee volunteer and guest services, handle patient and family complaints, shape operational policies, provide patient feedback analysis, manage translation services and patient-family advisory councils and sponsor patient experience rewards and recognitions.

Patient and family responses show how much it means to them:

A Penn State Health employee wrote, “Please congratulate your staff on a job well done with my daughter-in-law and future grandson. They did a great job being responsive, kind and understanding in my family’s time of need.”

A son shared his heartfelt appreciation after his parents were involved in a head-on collision. He lost his father, but his mother recovered. He wrote, “I have tried my best to recall everyone who so gracefully helped us navigate our days in your facility. Some people’s names I never learned and others may have slipped my mind, but please know how much you are appreciated by our family.”

A cardiology clinic patient shared his thoughts about his doctor of 15 years and the clinic staff, “I just want to commend him and all the other people that make this office run, from the technicians to the nurses to the people that answer the phones. Excellent service, very much about the patient. We’re never a number.”

A liver transplant patient, who received care from Penn State Health for seven years, suffered three failed transplants. His doctor gave him a “heart to heart” that helped him get through each one. When he finally received a successful operation, his former caregivers visited him. “I didn’t just get a liver,” he said. “I gained a family.”

The Penn State Health Patient and Guest Experience Departments and all staff who work with patients and families can help change lives, even in small ways. Patient Experience Week from Monday, April 25 to Friday, April 29, was designed to recognize relationships that might last only a short while but weigh heavily in the human equation. The week celebrates health care staff who facilitate family visits, shape policies and give rides. It honors those working to ensure the focus of care stays where it should – on patients and their families.

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