After hearing all about the Veterans Affairs Patient Experience Academy being conducted by the University of Delaware for the Wilmington VA Medical Center, Delaware U.S. Sen. Tom Carper and VA Secretary Robert Wilkie both drew comparisons to encounters they had with Maya Angelou.

Carper recalled Angelou’s 1996 commencement address at UD, during his tenure as Delaware’s governor, in which she said, “People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” He described Angelou’s frequently cited quote as a different way of wording the golden rule and said we have a moral obligation to treat people how they want to be treated.

Though Angelou is probably best known for her work as an author, poet and activist, Wilkie remembered her as a Wake Forest University professor during his time there as an undergraduate. He attended lectures by Angelou, had a chance to get to know her, and said that while she always emphasized culture, she also emphasized welcoming others.

“The first step in the veterans process is to make sure that those veterans who come to us are welcome,” said Wilkie. “If we don’t make them feel welcome that first time, all of the metrics, all the studies show us that we lose them. And it’s working here in Delaware.”

Carper and Wikie’s visit to UD’s Tower at STAR on April 29 included an opportunity to interact directly with some of the architects, facilitators and participants from the VA Patient Experience Academy (PXA), a multidisciplinary collaboration between UD’s College of Arts and Sciences, College of Health Sciences, Alfred Lerner College of Business and Economics’ Hospitality Business Management department, and Division of Professional and Continuing Studies. With a mission “to make hospitals truly hospitable,” the Patient Experience Academy focuses on experience and engagement addressed through a variety of learning methods, including short presentations, targeted readings, facilitated discussions and situational practice sessions.

“We can have metrics, numbers that make it appear we are providing great service, but if people don’t really feel that they are appreciated, that we care about them, it’s really for naught,” said Carper. “One of the things that I learned a long time ago as a naval officer was that if it isn’t perfect, make it better. Everything I do, I know I can do better.”

According to Ali Poorani, UD associate professor of Hospitality Business Management, director of Hospitality Associates for Research and Training (HART), and principal investigator of the PXA, 75 percent of what hospitals do is hospitality.

“With all of the experience we have in hospitality, it became my mission that we can do hospitality through health care,” said Poorani. “We have had the greatest experience with each and every one of the students.”

Serving 375 participants engaging in five weekly, two-hour sessions in the Tower at STAR, the program began in February 2019 with VA managers comprising the first of five 25-person cohorts from the Wilmington VA Medical Center and VA primary care locations in New Jersey and Delaware. Training for 10 additional 25-person cohorts of frontline associates and health care providers will commence in the fall. Upon successful completion of the program, attendees receive a Patient Experience Academy certificate from the Alfred Lerner College of Business and Economics.

Carper recognized the willingness of the VA, which was founded in 1930, to accept change and openness to trying something new and different.

“Hopefully, this will be a model for some other VA facilities around the country,” said Carper. “This man [Wilkie] has made it real clear that he wants, to the extent of our ability, the veterans to feel valued, loved and cared for wherever they seek the treatment.”

Tammy Schied, a Care in the Community administrative officer, said while the lessons provided through the audiovisuals, binders and speakers were valuable, there were very worthy intangible takeaways as well.

“What was an intangible, but was equally powerful, for me personally was our executive leadership and the conversations we were having with them about how this is what we are going to be doing,” said Schied. “This is not just words on a piece of paper. This is what we are striving for, and this is how we are going to do it. That made me walk away personally with a desire to do more.”