The National Capital Region (NCR) Market developed this digital toolkit to communicate with active duty service members and eligible beneficiaries about the availability of the NCR Patient Guidebook. The NCR Market Patient Guidebook will assist with navigating the NCR Market integrated network of care. The toolkit provides information and resources to conduct a local education campaign for active duty service members and eligible beneficiaries in your geographic area about services throughout the network.

Background

Patient satisfaction is an NCR priority and is an important measure of health care effectiveness. In late summer of 2020, the Clinical Optimization Team sought to better understand, across all NCR military hospitals and clinics (also known as military treatment facilities or MTFs), the overall quality of the patient experience with front desk staff and explore patient encounters. This effort resulted in the NCR Experience Office initiating a project to: Understand the patient experience when interacting with a MTF front desk; identify underlying factors of influence across all clinical facilities and define the variables, processes, and best practices of front desks in order to identify successful approaches to patient engagement both inside the MHS and private health care systems.

The team found that within our NCR Market network of care that includes 32 MTFs, 11 dental treatment facilities serving more than 270K enrollees, some active duty service members and eligible beneficiaries entering the NCR Market find it challenging to effectively manage their health care. Therefore, the NCR Market digital Patient Guidebook was created to introduce all new/current constituents to the NCR Market construct and to optimize the beneficiary experience. 

This collaborative effort was coordinated with the NCR PAO, NCR Market MTF Leadership, Patient Experience & Relations offices, MTF Chief Medical Officers, and Defense Health Agency. The NCR Market Guidebook will act as an onboarding and reference guide to help patients navigate the NCR Market health care experience and will be updated every 6-12 months based on pertinent feedback and new information available to share.