On Monday Dec. 5, University of Missouri Health Care introduced a quality improvement pilot to improve the experience of Missouri Orthopaedic Institute patients. The project was created to provide patients with important information they will need before, during and after a hospital stay.

As an academic medical center, MU Health Care patients who come to us in a variety of ways — from planned joint surgeries to unexpected visits to our emergency departments. To streamline the patient experience and prepare patients for their care, MU Health Care has created a guide called “My Health Care Journal” to provide patients with basic information they need and a way to organize their complex personal medical information.

Since July, a multidisciplinary team of staff from throughout MU Health Care has worked to create the patient information guide. The guide contains information for patients about what to expect before, during and after a hospital stay. It also provides space for health care professionals to include education materials, medication lists, care plans and other personalized information

“We modeled our notebook after best practices from other hospitals’ information guides,” said Julie Brandt, PhD, a project director in MU’s Center for Health Care Quality and the My Health Care Journal project’s team leader. “We tailored this guide to the specific needs of our patients, though. Our goal is for this guide to offer a framework for patients to have greater engagement in their care and find greater satisfaction with the care they receive here.”

The pilot project will focus on joint surgery inpatients of Ajay Aggarwal, MD, Thomas Aleto, MD, and Sonny Bal, MD. After evaluating the effectiveness of the journal in pilot projects, the team plans to use the journal for planned and unplanned inpatients at all MU Health Care facilities.

For more information about this project, contact Julie Brandt at brandtju@health.missouri.edu.