Purpose: Although medical care for transgender and gender nonbinary (TGNB) individuals is rapidly expanding, numerous gaps in the organization of quality care for TGNB individuals remain. In 2018, the Mount Sinai Center for Transgender Medicine and Surgery (CTMS) expanded its unified care approach to integrate services with an interdisciplinary inpatient team for surgical patients as part of the program. The inpatient team connected with the existing interdisciplinary ambulatory team with all pertinent medical and psychosocial information shared between the teams. The format enabled the hospital team to better prepare in advance of a patient's arrival and facilitated discharge planning as well. We sought to assess patient satisfaction with inpatient care after implementation of the interdisciplinary operation.
Methods: The standard Press Ganey survey tool used by the Mount Sinai Health System to measure patient satisfaction with care was queried before and after implementation of the interdisciplinary inpatient care team.
Results: Patient ratings of inpatient care rose dramatically. Relative to other institutions nationally, Press Ganey scores rose into the 98th or 99th percentiles across all domains. The new scores represented a rise of 25% for communication with nurses, 3% for hospital environment, 25% for care transition, and 100% for willingness to recommend. The discharge information score represented a 30-fold improvement.
Conclusion: An interdisciplinary inpatient health care team can significantly improve patient satisfaction for TGNB patients. Such an approach might be considered for other TGNB health care programs along with health care delivery in other areas of medicine.
Keywords: academic medical centers; clinical care program design; interdisciplinary programs; transgender health.
Copyright 2022, Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers.