Setting and Patient Population

Lawrence General Hospital is a private, nonprofit community hospital (186 inpatient beds) located in the Merrimack Valley serving Northeastern Massachusetts and Southern New Hampshire, but primarily the city of Lawrence. Lawrence is characterized by having a very large number of residents living below the poverty line (28%), a large immigrant Hispanic population (76%), and having comparatively low levels of education (31.5% of the population does not have a high school education) (8). The city also has a serious housing shortage and is disproportionally affected by the opioid epidemic.

In 2015, Lawrence General hospital instituted a multipronged program engaging with physicians across the hospital, with the goal of improving the patient experience. Patient experience initiatives were discussed at departmental meetings in the 3 departments that together serve nearly all our inpatients (internal medicine, family medicine, and general surgery), but as the majority of patients are served by the general medicine hospitalist program (70%), the primary focus was on the hospitalist group. This included the dissemination of information at quarterly meetings where patient experience, quality/patient safety, and operational goals were rolled out.