The document summarizes the CoPilot Project, which was a collaboration between patients and clinicians at St. Mary's Cardiac Surgery program to improve the patient experience. They identified inconsistent communication as a key problem, leading to longer hospital stays and complications. Their solution was to designate a "CoPilot Nurse" as the primary point of contact for patients, to facilitate communication and provide consistent education before and after surgery. Patients praised this approach for reducing anxiety and giving them a voice in improving the process.

1. The CoPilot Project
Teresa Pendleton
Wife, Mom, Patient, CoPilot Team Member

2. What is CoPilot?
• CoPilot utilizes “co-design”: a process
where professionals empower, encourage,
and guide users to develop solutions for
themselves.

3. The team takes off...
• In August 2014, three patients and four
clinicians from St Mary’s Cardiac surgery
program attended a workshop with the
intention of improving the patient
experience during cardiac surgery.

4. What did we REALLY
do?
• Each patient gave a 5-10 minute summary
of their cardiac surgery experience
• The rest of the group actively listened and
identified key words, concepts, and feelings
• The key points were clustered to identify a
theme/problem

5. It looked like this:

6. The Problem
• Inconsistent communication leading to
longer hospital stay, patient dissatisfaction,
and increased postoperative complications.

7. Our Solution
• Cardiac Surgery “CoPilot” Nurse
• Primary point of contact
• Facilitate communication
• Consistent education pre/post-op
• Reinforce plan of care & expectations
during stay

8. Patient Perspective
• Bill Smith: “The CoPilot functions, as defined, will
definitely help alleviate the anxiety and
uncertainty that the patient and family always have
as part of any major surgical procedure.”
• Bruce Greenblatt: “When Dr. Katz asked me
for my input, I shared my thoughts and I found
other voices that echoed similar sentiments…”
• Teresa Pendleton:

9. Questions?
• The CoPilot team will be available for
questions during lunch

10. Questions?
• The CoPilot team will be available for
questions during lunch