MARQUETTE – April 24-28 marks Patient Experience Week, an annual event that gives us the chance to celebrate the extraordinary efforts of all of our physicians, nurses and staff at UP Health System-Marquette.

They are the heart of our community hospital and play an enormous role in providing the best experience possible for our patients.

We’re extremely proud of all of our employees’ hard work toward making our patients feel safe, well cared for and as comfortable as possible while being treated. And while we celebrate their hard work year-round, this week marks an especially significant time to single out their achievements.

To give you a little background, Patient Experience Week was initiated by The Beryl Institute as an annual event that shines a light on those who are directly impacting the patient experience, honoring their remarkable accomplishments and encouraging them in their continued drive to create positive patient experiences.

The Beryl Institute defines patient experience as “the sum of all interactions, shaped by an organization’s culture, that influence patient perceptions across the continuum of care.” At UP Health System-Marquette, quality is the cornerstone of our culture. It is at the center of everything we do and an essential ingredient as we work to create the best possible patient experience and advance our mission of making communities healthier. For us, quality is more than just a buzzword.

It’s a way of life that guides how we care for our patients and our community. And quality listens. We strive to ensure that the voices of our patients and their families are heard and valued.

Our leadership team regularly conducts executive patient safety rounding to ensure that leaders at every level of the organization engage with staff, physicians, patients and families about quality and patient safety.

I’m proud to say that we also use the nursing practice of bedside shift report. We believe that actively involving patients in this important transfer of care information from nurses going off duty to those coming on is essential to keeping patients safe.

By engaging patients in discussions around their progress and treatment plan, we provide a clear line of communication that reduces the risk of errors and maintains a consistency during shift changes that helps drive a high level of care.

We value the voices of our patients, both present and past. Our Patient and Family Advisory Board brings together some of our past patients, their family members and our hospital leaders to explore how we can continue to improve patient safety and the patient experience and help empower future patients to take an active role in their own care.

By keeping our patients and their families at the center of their care, through every conversation and decision, we’re ensuring that our patients’ voices are heard and valued and that we are creating the safest environment with the best possible patient experience.

The bottom line is that our patients matter. They are the reason that we do what we do. I am so proud of all of the hard work our physicians and staff are doing and will continue to do to make UP Health System-Marquette a place where people choose to come for healthcare.

We believe that a positive patient experience is a journey, and we will continue to work toward enhancing the safety and satisfaction of our patients and creating the best possible healthcare experience for them. It’s one of the most important ways we are able to make our community healthier.

We welcome all of our patients and the community to share their feedback regarding their experience at UP Health System-Marquette on our online form at: www.mgh.org/about-us/uphsm-patient-feedback.

Editor’s note: Karin Markey serves as quality director and patient safety officer at UP Health System-Marquette, a Duke LifePoint Hospital.