Developing a culture of person-centre care through reflective practice

Overview

Initiative type

Education and Training

Status

Deliver

Published

23 August 2019

Summary

The Metro South Hospital and Health Service - Person-centred care reflective practice program for staff sought to:

  1. Encourage professional reflection and insights about patient connection.
  2. Empower staff to engage with self-care behaviours.
  3. Embed and strengthen existing communication skills and mechanisms.
  4. Empower staff to reconnect with the meaningful work they do, no matter what their role/position.

The program that was developed included the following series of touchpoints:

  1. A 30 min online learning module introduction to PCC.
  2. A 2-hour in-person workshop comprising brief introduction to PCC, three rotational experiential and reflective activities that encourage staff to walk in the shoes of patients, gain insights into the impact of unconscious bias and communication for PCC and to reconnect with how their work reflects a commitment to PCC.
  3. Takeaway PCC activity that participants take back to their workplace and complete with their teams, and post workshop resources and reflective prompts.

The project has successfully navigated healthcare system challenges to deliver change, improvement and innovation in the health service and has presented at the Clinical Excellence Queensland Showcase 2019.

Key dates

Jun 2017

Implementation sites

Metro South Hospital and Health Service

Partnerships

MSH partnered with Within Consulting to design the program. Consumers, carers and healthcare staff together co-designed and provided input into the learning materials and experiential workshop activities for the program.

Aim

This program is a key component in the MSH mission to build a PCC culture across the entire organization, thus the strategic objectives of this initiative have been:

  1. Building a sustainable PCC culture across MSH;
  2. Empowering all MSH staff to contribute to and build the PCC culture, and;
  3. Growing our workforce’s capacity to engage with self-directed resilience building.

Delivering a PCC reflective practice program was a component of MSH’s application and achievement of Bronze Certification with Planetree International for recognition of excellence in PCC.

Benefits

Excellence in PCC within healthcare services has demonstrable benefits including: decreased mortality; decreased readmission rates; decreased rates of healthcare-acquired infections in hospital; reduced length of stay in hospital; improved adherence to treatment regimens; operational benefits including lower costs per case; and increased workforce satisfaction and retention rates. Evidence abounds too as to the connection between positive employee experience and wellness and patient experience, quality and safety of care, and employee resilience in the face of organisational change.

Background

Reflective practice is a way of studying ones own experiences to improve the way you work. It is very useful for health professionals who want to carry on learning throughout their lives. The act of reflection is a great way to increase confidence and become a more proactive and qualified professional.

Solutions implemented

  • 10,000+ MSH staff completed the online component.
  • 7000+ MSH staff completed the workshop/reflective practice component.
  • 400+ workshops were conducted across all Metro South Health sites.
  • 100+ MSH staff completed the train-the-facilitator workshop.

Evaluation and results

Post-program participant surveys indicated:

  • 92 per cent of participants felt they had the opportunity to practice and apply what they were learning as part of the program.
  • 89 per cent felt confident in their ability to apply the learnings they obtained back on the job.
  • 97 per cent were committed to practicing person-centred care in their work.
  • 87 per cent would recommend the program to their peers.

Qualitative survey data from these surveys indicated MSH staff:

  • were reminded of the meaningfulness of their work and their roles within the healthcare system.
  • developed clear strategies for applying a person-centred care approach within the workplace.
  • reported changing beliefs about the value of connection within their working lives and communication as vehicles to achieving PCC.

Lessons learnt

The need to flex to make the learning initiatives more accessible for busy work areas, or where the benefits of this intervention may not be obvious. For example, delivering workshops to team groups; minor modifications made to emphasize the importance of non patient-facing roles for PCC; and modification of experiential activities to increase relevance.

Key contact

Javed Khan

Person-Centred Care Strategy and Certification Lead

Metro South Hospital and Health Service

Email:  javed.khan@health.qld.gov.au

Last updated: April 2025

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