Patient Advocate | Patient Experience | Day | Full-Time

UF Health • Gainesville, FL

6d • Onsite

About The Position

The Patient Experience Advocate supports and enhances the patient experience by proactively acting on behalf of the patient/families. This role ensures that concerns or perceptions about the quality of care and/or service delivered by any member of the UF Health Shands team are heard in a timely fashion and addressed appropriately. The Patient Experience Advocate achieves this by investigating, resolving, documenting, and reporting organizational-specific patient, family, and visitor compliments, complaints, and grievances. The role involves developing, implementing, and participating in patient experience initiatives related to the Hospital. The Patient Experience Advocate serves as a trusted and informal information resource, communication channel facilitator, consultant, and practitioner for dispute resolution. The role seeks fair and equitable solutions to patient-caregiver problems, suggests dispute resolution processes for addressing and managing conflicts, and provides input to unit and departmental Managers on policy, procedural, and practice changes to maintain patient rights. The Patient Advocate promotes effective relationships and communication between patients and caregivers. In this position, you will resolve complaints and grievances and must be comfortable doing so in a calm manner.

Requirements

• Bachelor's degree in a healthcare, business, or a related field is required.
• Five years of verifiable experience as a Patient Advocate in an academic health center will be considered in lieu of the degree requirement.
• High regard for protecting confidentiality of patient and corporate information.
• Strong customer service skills.
• Ability to relate to people of diverse backgrounds, training, and experience.
• Ability to address difficult, awkward situations with tact and diplomacy.
• Ability to handle angry people constructively.
• High energy level.
• Excellent interpersonal and negotiating skills with the ability to influence across functional lines.
• Proven success applying a team approach to obtain resolution to an issue or successfully accomplish a goal.
• Proficiency in Microsoft Word, Excel, and Power Point.
• Ability to rapidly learn job-specific applications.

Nice To Haves

• Ability to facilitate groups.
• Three years of recent experience in an acute care hospital facility.
• Knowledge of CMS CoP regulations and The Joint Commission standards for patient complaints and grievances.
• Medical terminology.
• Knowledge of service improvement methodologies.

Responsibilities

• Investigating, resolving, documenting, and reporting organizational-specific patient, family, and visitor compliments, complaints, and grievances.
• Developing, implementing, and participating in patient experience initiatives related to the Hospital.
• Serving as a trusted and informal information resource, communication channel facilitator, consultant, and practitioner for dispute resolution.
• Seeking fair and equitable solutions to patient-caregiver problems.
• Suggesting dispute resolution processes for addressing and managing conflicts.
• Providing input to unit and departmental Managers on policy, procedural, and practice changes to maintain patient rights.
• Promoting effective relationships and communication between patients and caregivers.
• Resolving complaints and grievances in a calm manner.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Mid Level