MHA 598 Week 2 Brand as Experience Example

The Brand Happens at Discharge: Mapping the Patient Path Where a Health System's Promise Is Kept or Broken

[Student Name]

University of Phoenix

MHA/598: Using Results to Build Brand in the Health Sector

Week 2 Assignment

[Instructor Name]

[Date]

The health system, its patient experience scores, pathway map and improvements are composites written for a model paper; national figures and research findings come from the sources cited.

A letter arrived at the chief executive's office of the composite Knoxville health system from a 68-year-old man who had undergone hip replacement at its largest hospital. He praised his surgeon and the operating room team. Then he described his discharge: a nurse he had never met handed him a stack of papers ten minutes before his ride arrived, no one explained his new blood thinner and when he called the next day with a question, he was transferred four times. He ended: you fixed my hip and then forgot about me. The vice president of strategy used the letter to begin the second phase of the brand work.

The Promise Being Tested

The system's new promise had three parts: honesty about care, fast access and published results. The letter showed a gap between the promise and the experience. The truth about his care was not explained, and help was not quick.

Brand as Experience

A brand promise is made in words but kept in experiences. Patients judge a health system by moments of care: how they are greeted, whether they understand what is happening, whether their concerns are heard and whether they know what to do when they go home. These moments, repeated thousands of times a day, are the brand.

National Benchmarks

The federal patient survey supplies the yardstick. Among patients discharged in the twelve months ending September 2025, 72% nationwide gave their hospital one of the two top scores on the ten-point rating, while the share saying staff had told them how to manage their recovery after leaving stood at 86% (Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, 2026).

The System's Scores

The system's three hospitals had overall ratings of 66%, 68% and 70%, all below the national figure. Discharge information scores ranged from 80% to 84%. Communication about medicines was the lowest domain at every hospital. The hip replacement patient's experience was typical, not unusual.

Why Experience Is Quality

Leaders sometimes treat patient experience as a matter of customer service, separate from clinical quality. Evidence says otherwise. Pulling together 55 studies, one systematic review saw better patient experience go hand in hand with safer and more effective care in many diseases, settings and outcome measures, including links with health outcomes, adherence to recommended practice and medication, preventive care and resource use such as hospitalization and length of stay (Doyle et al., 2013). A patient who does not understand his blood thinner is not only unhappy; he is at risk.

Staffing Shows Up in Ratings

Patient experience also reflects operations. The same national study cited in the first week showed recommendation rates about seven points higher where nurse staffing was richest (Jha et al., 2008). The system's lowest-scoring units had the highest patient loads.

Mapping the Pathway

The vice president formed a team of patients, nurses, physicians, pharmacists and schedulers to map the path of a surgical patient from first contact to recovery. They walked through each step, noted what patients felt and identified where experiences diverged from the promise.

Moment One: Getting an Appointment

Patients waited an average of three weeks for a surgical consultation and were often transferred when calling. The promise of quick access broke before care began.

Moment Two: Understanding the Plan

Surgeons explained procedures well, according to patients, but written materials were long and technical. Patients wanted a simple plan: what will happen, when and what they should do.

Moment Three: Being Heard in the Hospital

Patients on busy units said nurses were kind but rushed. Call lights were answered slowly at night.

Moment Four: Going Home

Discharge was the weakest moment. Instructions came late, medicines were not explained and patients left unsure whom to call.

Moment Five: After Discharge

Follow-up calls reached fewer than half of patients, and callers with questions faced phone transfers.

What Staff Saw

Nurses on the surgical units described the same discharge problems from their side. Discharge orders often arrived late in the afternoon, when rides were already waiting, leaving little time for teaching. Pharmacists were rarely involved unless a nurse called them. The broken moment was not caused by uncaring staff but by a process that squeezed teaching into minutes.

Where Patients Called After Leaving

An analysis of calls to the main hospital number found that about a third of calls from recently discharged surgical patients were transferred at least twice. Many concerned medicines or wound care, questions a nurse could answer in minutes. The phone system itself was breaking the promise of quick help.

Early Wins Matter

The team chose the discharge changes as the first priority because they addressed the weakest scores, touched the promise directly and could be tested quickly on one unit. A visible early improvement would show staff that the brand work was about their daily practice and patients' safety, not slogans.

Changes for Each Moment

For appointments, the system created a central scheduling team with a target of consultation within ten days. For the plan, surgeons and nurses developed one-page care plans in plain language. For being heard, units with the highest patient loads received additional staff under the workforce strategy. For going home, discharge teaching begins the day before discharge, with a pharmacist explaining new medicines and patients using teach-back to confirm understanding. For follow-up, every surgical patient receives a call within 48 hours and a direct phone number to a nurse.

Testing the Discharge Changes

The new discharge process was tested first on one orthopedic unit for eight weeks. Pharmacists met every joint replacement patient the day before discharge, nurses used teach-back and every patient left with a direct nurse line. Discharge information scores on that unit rose by nine points in the first quarter, and calls transferred more than once fell sharply. The results persuaded the other surgical units to adopt the process.

Owners and Measures

Each moment has an owner: the scheduling director, the surgical service line leaders, the chief nursing officer, the pharmacy director and the transitions of care manager. Measures include time to consultation, patient survey scores on communication about medicines and discharge information, follow-up call completion and calls resolved without transfer.

Listening Continuously

Beyond survey scores, the system invites patients to share stories, positive and negative, and reviews them monthly with unit leaders. The hip replacement patient was invited to join the patient advisory council and helped redesign the discharge materials.

Why Not Advertising

Some leaders suggested an advertising campaign about the patient experience. The vice president argued that advertising a promise patients had not yet experienced would widen the gap and deepen cynicism. Experience must improve first.

Conclusion

A single letter showed where the brand broke: at discharge and after. National benchmarks, research linking experience to safety and outcomes and evidence that staffing shapes ratings showed why experience is part of quality. A pathway map identified five moments that matter, and operational changes with owners and measures aim to make the brand promise something patients can feel.

References

Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. (2026). Patient survey (HCAHPS): National [Data set]. Provider Data Catalog. https://data.cms.gov/provider-data/dataset/99ue-w85f

Doyle, C., Lennox, L., & Bell, D. (2013). A systematic review of evidence on the links between patient experience and clinical safety and effectiveness. BMJ Open, 3(1), e001570. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2012-001570

Jha, A. K., Orav, E. J., Zheng, J., & Epstein, A. M. (2008). Patients' perception of hospital care in the United States. New England Journal of Medicine, 359(18), 1921-1931. https://doi.org/10.1056/NEJMsa0804116