Army Health Clinic Stuttgart
News Release
The community has been heard and Army Health Clinic Stuttgart is ranked above all other services for patient satisfaction in the Department of Defense’s Joint Outpatient Experience Survey (JOES) for the past 12 months with an overall result of 95.5 percent.
“The entire team is beyond exceptional here and we could not be more proud of the work they do each and every day,” said Maj. Cody Mead, medical director.
JOES is a unified outpatient survey system used at all military treatment facilities across all the services. It combines and standardizes long-standing methods used by the Army, Navy, Air Force and Defense Health Agency/National Capital Region to learn about beneficiary healthcare experiences with the goal of making them better. About 2.7 million JOES are distributed annually to about 10 percent of patients who have visited a military health facility in a random selection process. At first, only paper surveys were distributed, but recently a website was set up for taking the two-page survey.
Marcy Lindo, the clinic’s group practice manager, said the health clinic looks very closely at the results each month and takes all the feedback very seriously.
“The feedback we receive from our patients is the key to making this clinic the best not only in the Army but in Military medicine, and this is very important to us since we are a purple community,” she said.
The survey doesn’t ask for just feedback on the clinic’s providers; it also looks at every department in the clinic and gauges the level of satisfaction for each visit.
“No matter if you are a provider, nurse, front desk staff or our ancillary services, we greatly appreciate the positive comments we receive from our patients,” said Lt. Col. Lisa Dennis, clinic executive officer. “It helps us know we are doing the right thing for our patients and we are making a difference.”
For the clinic, it’s very important to receive the communities’ feedback both positive and negative.
“If only 20 percent of our population is providing us with feedback, we are not getting a complete picture of how our community feels,” Lindo said.
The clinic encourages community members to speak up by taking the time to complete a JOES when they receive them in the mail or through email.
“The feedback we receive not only provides us details on how the community feels about their provider, but it tells us about how they feel on our Access to Care, our ancillary services and our front desk staff,” Lindo said.
Mead said he ensures the providers receive their feedback, and takes the time to talk through the results by highlighting great practices and improvements with all of the providers.
“We are proud to say that one of our providers, Dr. Robert Smith, pediatrician, was recognized as MEDCOM Employee of the Year for 2017 and the feedback that we received from patients helped contribute directly to his recognition,” Mead said. “We are hoping to highlight another provider next year with the input from the community.”
The JOES survey is the best way to give feedback about the clinic as it is tracked by the DoD, but it is not the only way to have your voice heard.
“We ask that all patients who feel they do not receive the care and information they needed during their visit to please talk to one of our patient advocates prior to leaving the building.” Dennis said. “Our team is here to provide high quality healthcare to improve readiness, health and wellness of all our beneficiaries, we strive to be the best in military medicine and provide the best and most compassionate care possible.”