Background: Patients’ names are pronounced incorrectly during medical encounters, but there is limited literature on the impact name pronunciation has on patient experience. At our quaternary care center, there is no system to communicate the pronunciation of a patient’s name. Our clinical experience on the cardiology service highlighted the negative effects of name mispronunciation on the patient experience. Therefore, we developed a quality improvement study to assess the impact this has on patients and strategize ways to address this.
Methods: A patient survey was developed and reviewed by 5 physicians and 1 continuous improvement specialist to assess the current state. The survey used a 5-point likert scale to capture admitted patients’ experiences including frequency of correct pronunciation, importance of correct pronunciation, and change in comfort or trust with incorrect pronunciation. The survey was randomly administered to patients admitted to the cardiology service, and emailed to 600 patient advocates. The root cause analysis (RCA) was conducted using the ‘5 Whys’ method to determine the following: 1) why names are mispronounced in the hospital, 2) why name correct pronunciation matters. A recommendation was determined using an impact/effect matrix.
Results: There were 150 survey respondents (55 admitted patients, and 95 patient advocates). 14% reported their name was rarely or never pronounced correctly. 22% felt name mispronunciation decreased comfort in medical care. 15% felt it decreased trust in medical providers. The RCA generated themes in part 1: provider time, challenging, awareness, lack of central system. Themes generated in part 2 were heritage, culture, care, trust. The impact/effect matrix idea that generated the highest impact and lowest effort was a white board in the hospital room for patients to complete with preferred name and pronunciation.
Conclusions: Patient name mispronunciation decreases patients’ trust in medical providers and comfort in care. To address this, we designed a patient white board to provide a universal system for patient name pronunciation. We will assess the success of implementing this tool in future research. Accurate name pronunciation is an important part of inclusion and a celebration of the diverse patients we treat.
