A friendly introduction can transform a patient"s encounter

The #hellomynameis campaign has manufactured a lot more than 26m Twitter impressions in 10 months. Photograph: Kacper Pempel/Reuters

As a medical professional I have turn into a keen observer of the healthcare I get considering that my diagnosis of cancer almost 3 many years ago. In August last 12 months, I became unwell with an infection following some routine surgery to replace the stents that drain my kidneys. This necessitated a journey to the emergency department and a subsequent quick admission to hospital.

One particular of the starkest observations I created for the duration of this particular episode was the absence of introductions from the staff delivering my care. It was not just the occasional slip but something that appeared to permeate through the expert groups and assistance workers. When someone did offer you a pleasant introduction, nevertheless, it made all the variation. It began a relationship, helped to place me at ease relieving my anxieties and humanised what can in many circumstances be an really dehumanising encounter. When introductions have been missing, I was left questioning who the particular person was and feeling that I was just yet another physique with a illness in a hospital bed.

At health-related college, we have been taught on day a single of our clinical education to introduce ourselves to a patient prior to proceeding with anything. There were even marks in our exams for completing this process. I will not consider, even so, that we genuinely target on why a friendly introduction is so crucial and not just a typical courtesy.

As a patient, you are in a vulnerable place. The healthcare crew understands so considerably personal information about you, yet you typically know nothing about them. This results in a very one-sided power imbalance. A straightforward introduction can help to redress this imbalance. I also feel it is the very first rung on the ladder to offering compassionate care by establishing a human connection and building believe in with a individual.

I discussed the absence of introductions with my husband throughout visiting time a single evening. As an alternative of pursuing a complaint, which in my experience hardly ever leads to a tangible improvement in the NHS, we made a decision to do anything constructive to remind and encourage healthcare personnel about the value of introductions.

The end result was the social media campaign I launched utilizing the hashtag #hellomynameis. I began to tweet frequently about the subject and invited healthcare personnel to pledge their assistance for the campaign on my website. The thought was to reinforce the valuable nature of introductions and to request men and women during the care sector to pledge their dedication to introducing themselves appropriately to each and every patient they meet. We even made a brand to give the campaign a visual identity.

It soon became clear that my encounter was not a special 1, with scores of other individuals and carers taking the possibility to inform me about their dislike of absent introductions, and what a large affect a welcoming introduction can make to the self-confidence they had in their healthcare team.

The campaign seemed to strike a chord and soon I was inundated with messages of support from people across well being and social care interested in selling the idea in their personal workplaces. The entire spectrum of folks from all corners of the NHS was represented, from chief executives and health-related directors to healthcare assistants, student nurses and porters.

The notion became the target of several trust board meetings lanyards and badges with the emblem have been made reminders popped up in clinics, on personal computer screensavers and believe in intranets chief executives started to site about the campaign, and it was a frequent subject of conversation at numerous healthcare conferences. It has produced much more than 26m Twitter impressions in ten months, with much more than 18,000 person tweets and virtually 22,000 site visitors to my blogpost.

The ingenuity of this idea is its simplicity. It expenses nothing at all and will take only seconds, but it improves patient knowledge. It is the initial stage to finding what issues to that individual and to placing their concerns 1st. I am proud of the care I offer and want my individuals to know my name. As a patient, I think that it is the small items like this that make the largest big difference.

My prognosis is predicted to be only months but I am established to use some of this precious remaining time to drive the campaign more until it grows its very own wings, so I will carry on to accept invitations to speak and create right up until I am as well sick to do so. I would enjoy to feel one particular of my legacies will be an NHS that recognises the value of treating individuals as individuals, and one particular exactly where every single single member of staff understands about #hellomynameis and is inspired to get the campaign to heart.

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A friendly introduction can transform a patient"s encounter