Trish Archer BSN, RN
Former Senior Manager, Clinical Services and Operations Emory Executive Health, General Internal Medicine 1365, Emory Special Diagnostic Services
Seamless service and the gift of time for each patient
"Dr. Seavey would be so proud of this clinic, because he wanted to give the very best care that he possibly could to each patient. He wanted the ultimate care. He wanted perfectionistic care. He knew that care didn’t just come from the physician. You needed to have a team approach.”
Adequate was never enough for Paul W. Seavey, and it’s not for Trish Archer, either.
She was an Emory cardiac ICU nurse in the early 1990s when she met Dr. Seavey and became, in essence, one of his students. She uses everything he taught her about patient care, and even more important, pushes herself to improve the patient experience at the Seavey Clinic.
An important measure comes from Press Ganey, which collects and assesses data from clinic patients. The Seavey Clinic is regularly in the 90th percentile nationally for patient satisfaction, but Archer and a clinic team do not believe that is good enough. So they trained at the Disney Institute to identify every touchpoint with each Seavey Clinic patient and make each interaction exceed the patient’s expectations.
“We know that our patients come here wanting a better experience than they’ve had anywhere else, and we have to get to know them by being warm and friendly and providing care that looks seamless,” Archer said.
Much of what Disney stresses is what the Seavey Clinic already is known for: When an organization puts the customer at the center, and empowers its people and unifies processes to serve the customer—outstanding service can become status quo. When all touchpoints are top-notch, a Seavey Clinic patient has a much greater reason to return, and to recommend the clinic to others.
The clinic’s success with managing patients with diabetes and hypertension is so impressive that a Medicare team visited to learn more, Archer said. The Seavey Clinic sees more than 1,000 diabetic patients, and the percentage who have an elevated Hba1C level (9 or above, a measurement of blood sugar level over time) has decreased from 17 percent to less than 6 percent.
The reason? “It’s our multidisciplinary approach,” Archer said. Example: For diabetic patients, clinic pharmacists will use Skype to help teach a patient how to properly use an inhaler or make insulin injections.
For hypertensive patients, the Seavey Clinic instituted a blood pressure recheck system after noticing that BP numbers weren’t always accurate. Patients had been checked right after arrival, after they may have rushed to the clinic, and remained stressed about traffic or missing work. In the new system, a patient’s BP that is over 140/90 will be rechecked at least once more and addressed that day.
There are many more examples of extra Seavey attention. Several days in advance of any patient visit, clinical support personnel will review their history and flag if a flu shot, blood test, urine or eye exam is due and put in a standing order. That gives physicians more time with each patient.
Time with each patient Is Seavey Clinic’s hallmark. Archer spends 100 percent of some days doing exactly that.
“Dr. Seavey preferred spending quality time with each patient to educate them on their physiology and the disease process,” Archer said. “By doing that, a physician can teach the patient and figure out any problem.”
Archer also oversees the implementation of research projects, manages clinic staff and coordinates nursing care. Like Emory medical students, Emory nursing students are taught at the side of Emory nurses at the Seavey Clinic.
“I like doing it all,” Archer said. “I like learning through the projects, and managing people to get good outcomes from them. And I love patient care. What I love is knowing that I am helping somebody and making their life easier through healthcare, because healthcare is so complex.”