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Highland Hospital / Patients & Visitors

Patient and Family Centered Care

Patient-Focused Care a Tradition at Highland

Highland Hospital is committed to giving every patient and family the best experience possible. We truly believe that the best medical care happens when patients and family members feel like full partners in their health care. That’s why, if you’re our patient, you’ll notice a real difference at Highland.

The Highland Difference

  • It might be something simple, like the warm greeting you and your family receive from our Welcome Desk staff. Or a friendly staff member offering to escort you to your destination if you look lost.
  • You might notice that your nurses give change-of-shift report not at the nurses’ station, but at your bedside, so that you can participate in the conversation and ask questions.
  • Or you might get a personal visit from our Chief of Medicine, Robert McCann, MD or Chief of Surgery Joseph Johnson, MD. They may visit you simply to say hello, listen to your feedback and thank you for choosing Highland. Our Chief of Pathology, Julietta Fiscella, makes personal visits to patients, too, to explain their lab results and answer questions.
  • It might be the quiet and restful environment that we’re working hard to create for our patients and visitors. Recent patient satisfaction results show we are making solid progress.

Innovations To Improve Patient and Family Experience

Nurses Bedside Shift Report and Chief Rounding are just two of the many innovations Highland has incorporated to make the patient and family experience better.

Highland and all affiliates of the University of Rochester Medical Center have long recognized the importance of putting the patient’s needs first. We call it “Patient and Family Centered Care,” and it’s an approach many hospitals around the country have embraced to bring caregivers closer to the patients and families they serve.

An early example of Patient and Family Centered Care at Highland dates back to 1970, when staff recognized that expectant mothers increasingly asked for their husbands to be in the delivery room. The hospital enacted a new policy that made Highland the first in Rochester to allow fathers to be present for the birth of a child. Highland was the first hospital in our area to appoint a patient advocate dedicated to addressing patients’ concerns. Over the years, we’ve found many ways to give patients and families a greater voice in their health care experience.

URMC and its affiliates, including Highland, embarked on Patient and Family Centered Care in February 2011 to provide even more focus to these efforts. Since then we’ve identified many more opportunities to change the way we work and change the patient experience for the better. We’ve partnered with some valued experts in this endeavor – former patients of Highland and their family members. Members of Highland’s Patient and Family Advisory Council participate on all our improvement teams and help guide our progress.

Steady Increases In Patient Satisfaction Results

In the past 18 months, Highland has implemented many changes that are enhancing the patient experience. We’ve seen steady increases in our patient satisfaction results. Even more important is the feedback we hear directly from patients and families. There is nothing more gratifying to our team to hear how we’ve made a difference. If you have a suggestion about how we can improve the patient experience, please contact Patient and Family Relations at (585) 341-9673 or by email: Patient and Family Relations