Enhancing Bone Marrow Transplant Care Through the Patient Experience

Topic Significance & Study Purpose/Background/Rationale: Relationship-Based Care (RBC) emphasizes returning back to the basics of focusing on the needs of the patient and family. RBC focuses on three key relationships: relationship with self, with colleagues, and with patients/families. The key relationship in the health-care setting is the nurse and patient /family relationship; it is the core of a healing environment. Structures, processes, and relationships are designed to support every team member's ability to provide coordinated, compassionate, high quality care. Positive relationships can strengthen nursing practice, improve quality of care and ensure patient safety. One of the key processes in RBC is the teaching process. Education of health care providers has traditionally utilized case studies to present specific medical conditions followed by discussion on their proper medical management. This training process is generally focused on objective data and is de-personalized, without incorporating individual patient perspectives on illness or related therapy. As healthcare evolves towards a more holistic, interdisciplinary patient-centered model of care there is a growing awareness that educational methods must be expanded to keep pace with this innovation. Our team therefore sought to move beyond the traditional case study method of bone marrow transplant (BMT) nursing education in favor of a more holistic patient-centered approach. Methods, Intervention, & Analysis: The patient-centered teaching approach involves embedding the patient's personal experience into the educational case based format to enhance the learning experience. BMT recipients and their caregivers are interviewed, spanning from the pre-transplant discussion and preparation for inpatient hospitalization through the period of post-transplant recovery and extended follow up. A total of eight patient-caregiver pairs are participating, each pair representing a unique facet of transplant. Findings & Interpretation: Testing options such as measuring the effectiveness of a case study with the patient's experience embedded versus a traditional case study are currently being considered to optimally assess the educational benefit of this intervention. It is hoped that this model will provide a uniquely insightful learning tool for providers that goes well beyond the traditional diagnosis-based method. Discussion & Implications: Development of a new, patient-centered teaching modality has the potential to revolutionize provider education. This has been implemented utilizing a paradigm shift that emphasizes patient-centered transplant experiences. The prospect of extending this approach to other facets of clinical training (non-BMT nursing, medical house staff and students, and even ancillary providers), is exhilarating.