Congratulations to Dr. Erica Tabakin for winning one of the first annual Right Fit HIPster Awards.
Dr. Tabakin received her medical degree from Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School and is a current Chief Resident at the University of Pennsylvania. She is being recognized for her quality improvement project focused on provider communication behavior and the patient experience.
During her time in residency, Dr. Tabakin has learned the importance of communication, teamwork, and the necessity for quality improvement in the emergency department. She realized that while patient satisfaction surveys are the current measurement of patients’ perception of their care, there are some instances where a disconnect may arise between satisfaction, outcome, and quality. She felt this gap in perception can be closed through improved communication with our patients. She remembered that in medical school she was taught to sit down during patient encounters; however in practice, sitting is not always possible. She co-created, developed, and led a multi-disciplinary, institution-wide quality improvement project and research study, “Grab-a-Seat,” in response to imperfect doctor-patient and nurse-patient communication scores from consumer satisfaction surveys in our emergency department.
In this initiative, they implemented “Grab-a-SEAT,” a colorful folding stool for providers to sit down during patient encounters, to positively influence the patient experience. Consistent with recent published literature, their pre-intervention data demonstrates that sitting down significantly improves communication, quality metric scores, and positively impacts the patient’s perception of their care. Dr. Tabakin and her team will present their final data of the effectiveness of their intervention at the 2016 ACEP Scientific Assembly in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Dr. Tabakin aspires to become an academic emergency medicine physician focusing on the growing field of medical education and quality improvement and to remain dedicated to both her patients and the quality of care within her department.
Congratulations to Dr. Tabakin, an amazing FemInEM!