Patient Advocacy Specialist: PT Days

Job Title

Position Highlights:

• Work/life: You will find support to help you manage your personal life while building a career.
• Employee-centric: Tuition reimbursement, loan forgiveness, comprehensive major medical, dental and vision insurance, paid time off, 401(k), health and wellness offerings, monthly employee events, and more.
• Lifestyle: Sandusky was voted "Best Coastal Small Town in America". You will have the opportunity to enjoy living and working in this growing area along the beautiful shores of Lake Erie.

About Firelands Health:

Our goal at Firelands Health is to be the best & preferred independent healthcare employer for the Sandusky Bay region.

Firelands Health is the area's largest and most comprehensive resource for quality medical care. We are "big enough to care for you, and small enough to care about you". We are locally managed and governed as a not-for-profit healthcare facility, serving the counties of Erie, Ottawa, Sandusky, and Huron, covering a regional service area with over 300,000 residents. Our mission is to provide excellent healthcare, promote community wellness, and improve the lives we serve.

Our Core ACE Values: Attitude: We choose to be positive and inclusive every day. Commitment: We are committed to exceed the expectations of those we serve. Enthusiasm: We will work passionately to make a difference.

What You Will Do:

• Serves as a liaison for enhanced patient relations between the patient/family unit and staff. This role assists patients and families by communicating their positive and negative perceptions of the hospital experience to staff facilitating the patient's understanding of organizational policy, procedure, and services, and assisting with problem resolution.
• Coordinates the collection, analysis, and distribution of complaint and satisfaction feedback and action to the leadership team.
• Rounds on assigned patients each work day to proactively identify strengths and concerns expressed by patients and families.
• Engages with patient relative to the presenting needs including service, communication, basic comfort, and care assistance and referral.
• Demonstrates optimal attitude, commitment, and enthusiasm for patient satisfaction/customer service and collaboration with direct caregivers.
• Uses sound judgment to choose an appropriate level of response and the need to involve other members of the patient care team in coordinating timely, effective solutions to patient/staff needs.
• Assures appropriate communication of issues within the interdisciplinary team to drive consistency and coordination of care.
• Responds to suggestions and compliments provided by patients and provides positive reinforcement to patients and staff.
• Coordinates the receipt, investigation, problem-solving, communication, and correspondence related to patient complaints and grievances during the hospital stay and after discharge.
• Maintains an organized work flow that assures visibility with patients while establishing priorities among multiple tasks.
• Collaborates with Case Management and other transitions of care functions to accept and manage strengths and concerns throughout the continuum of care.
• Identifies and refers systems and issue related problems.
• Maintains a database of patient contacts, concerns, grievances and actions.
• Compiles complaint/grievance reports from multiple sources, inputs documentation into the database, maintains the grievance log and files, and produces activity reports for evaluation and communication.
• Correlates complaint/grievance findings with other feedback resources to clarify opportunities for improvement.
• Facilitates advocacy and services to assure patient rights.
• Participates on committees including SAMA, the ACE of Hearts Team, and Continuous Quality Improvement Team that focus on patient satisfaction.
• Maintains proficiency in computer programs related to organizational functioning.
• Serves as a contributor to the grievance log.
• Ability to be mobile, communicate effectively, and adequately understand oral and written communication from others.
• Maintains knowledge of current accreditation requirements and regulatory standards.

What You Will Need:

• Experience in a health care clinical field is required. Bachelor's degree in a health care related field, current license, or certification preferred.
• Three years of relevant experience in a clinical care or health care related customer service.
• Achievement of patient advocacy certification within three years of accepting position.
• Strong customer service and interpersonal skills.
• Must be a team player and have proven success applying a team approach to obtain resolution or accomplish a goal.
• Must be able to address difficult, awkward situations with tact and diplomacy.
• Must work with staff in a supportive way to troubleshoot and resolve issues.
• Must be visible to staff, offering support and modeling of service behaviors and concern resolution processes.
• Adaptability with a high tolerance for ambiguity.
• Proven analytic skills including analysis, planning, organizing, and troubleshooting.

Equal Opportunity Employer/Protected Veterans/Individuals with Disabilities This employer is required to notify all applicants of their rights pursuant to federal employment laws. For further information, please review the Know Your Rights notice from the Department of Labor.