Dianne Hater, our patient and family advocate, has been a key part of our department for the last 14 years. She comes to work every day with a smile on her face, with the primary goal of enhancing the radiology experience for patients and their families. Her initial responsibilities were focused around improving the waiting room experience, answering patient and family questions while they waited, providing information about hospital policies, and connecting families with financial and social assistance programs. She worked closely with the registration personnel, technologists, and patients when issues arose with respect to imaging instructions, other same-day appointments and imaging delays.
Over the years, she continues to be very helpful in the waiting room, but she has also been active in improving patient flow, communicating with other clinical departments in the hospital, and improving pre-procedure patient education. In addition, she has played a key role in leading our Patient Family Experience team, a group 32 radiology employees, including technologists, registrars, nurses, physicians and administrative personnel, who meet monthly to work on designated projects. This group has used a coaching model similar to the patient safety coaching model whereby “coaches” teach and observe others in the department while they perform specific tasks and cover specific talking points in their discussions with patients, all to improve the overall patient and family experience in the Radiology department at the base and neighborhood locations.
Dianne has also been an active participant in our department projects centered around improving the experience of the Radiology employees, including the technologists who take the images and the radiologists who interpret the images. She is a champion for living up to all of our expectations here at Cincinnati Children’s – compassionate, collaborative, honest, impactful and curious. Her compassion is contagious, and her kindness to all is immeasurable; she’s a perfect role model for all of us, regardless of where we work in healthcare. And because of her, we are certainly Better Together.
Dr. Bernadette Koch, author; Glenn Miñano, BFA, editor; Meredith Towbin, copy editor
