Healthcare organizations are more than just businesses. They play a vital role in their patients’ lives, health, and future, depending on the quality of care they receive. High-quality care isn’t just about finding the right treatment for the patient but how care is delivered to the patient. It’s a careful balance between helping clients to achieve health outcomes and working towards business outcomes.
The patient experience is a major factor in the success of healthcare facilities because if patients don’t feel valued or looked after, they will take their business elsewhere and could even warn others against using a healthcare organization. So let’s take a closer look at providing a positive healthcare patient experience.
What is Patient Experience?
Whether a patient reports having a good experience or a bad experience with a care provider isn’t only dependent on the treatment given and the health outcomes achieved. The patient experience amounts to the delivery of healthcare services across the board from interactions with clinicians, communication with staff, the continuum of care between primary care clinicians and specialists, and the efforts put towards formulating a health plan and working towards health outcomes. The sum of all interactions can either create a positive patient experience or a negative one.
While care delivery addresses illness, disease, and well-being, healthcare professionals cannot forget the human experience. Instead of reducing patients to their health issues, embracing patient-centered care improves the patient experience. The idea is that patients are delivered a high level of service as they receive healthcare.
Why Is Patient Experience Important?
How care is delivered and the experience it creates for patients matters, both to the happiness of patients and the success of the healthcare business. That being said, it does require time, resources, and commitment to uplevel the patient experience. Here are some of the main reasons why investing in patient experience is well worth it.
1. Boosts your bottom line.
A high patient satisfaction rating is profitable. So investing in an experience that makes patients happy will pay off. Patients are looking for healthcare facilities that take their experience into account. That means the better the patient experience clinicians deliver, the easier it will be to attract new patients and retain current patients.
2. Improves your reputation.
A great way to attract new patients is through recommendations. Current patients will only recommend healthcare services to friends and family through word of mouth or online reviews if they have an exceptional experience. So a good healthcare experience builds an attractive reputation that the business will benefit from.
3. Increases patient engagement.
To be able to achieve health outcomes and follow through on healthcare plans, patients need to be engaged with their treatment. Whether this means taking medication according to schedule, committing to regular exercises, or turning up to an appointment with specialist clinicians, patients need to comply with their treatment plan. A positive healthcare experience with clear communication and a continuum of care motivates patients to engage in their treatment.
4. Enhances your outcomes.
With streamlined processes for delivering patient-centered care and patients engaged with their treatment, positive health outcomes are much more likely to be achieved. Business outcomes are also improved as customer retention increases, patients are happy to recommend your healthcare services and new customers are attracted to the business, fostering growth.
Patient Experience vs Patient Satisfaction
We are focusing on patient experience, not patient satisfaction, for a distinct reason. Patient experience and patient satisfaction are not the same thing. Patient experience is more objective and therefore easier for healthcare providers to manage and improve. A healthcare system sets a standard for the patient experience they want to provide such as responsiveness in communication and follow-up, a smooth and effective continuum of care between providers, and a clean environment. Patient experience measures would track whether those standards are being met.
On the other hand, patient satisfaction depends on patient perception. They report how happy they are with their service from care providers. This will be based on the individual patient’s expectations of the experience they should receive, making it completely subjective. A good patient experience can foster a high level of patient satisfaction. But not always as the patient’s expectations need to be met to give a high rating of their medical care. Therefore, the patient perspective should drive the patient experience.
While both patient experience and patient satisfaction should be regularly measured because they influence patient loyalty, patient-to-patient referrals, and overall profitability, a high-quality patient experience is a more tangible focus.
How to Improve Patient Experience: 11 Strategies
To meet patient expectations, foster patient satisfaction, and enjoy the benefits of a good patient experience, there are various strategies healthcare facilities can implement. Let’s go through them so you can start formulating your patient experience improvement plan.
1. Analyze your patient data.
As a good patient experience comes from meeting patient expectations, start by collecting information on the patient perspectives and measurable experience of the business currently. Data can be collected in multiple ways such as through patient experience surveys and focus groups where patients are asked to share their feedback. Healthcare facilities could leverage digitization, using devices to collect real-time metrics about the customer journey and any blockages in the system.
2. Improve patient communication.
Patients get frustrated by a lack of communication because it makes them feel unsupported by their clinicians and like they have to jump through hoops to get the help they need when they need it most. Working on bringing together patients and their care teams will enable communication to flow much more freely. They’ll know what’s going on and why and can be reassured if they have any concerns. Ensure you have sufficient communication infrastructure in place.
3. Take advantage of technology and software.
Introducing a digital platform can meet a lot of needs. Patients can get in contact with their care team, check their health plan, and make appointments with ease. Key documentation like health records can be made available through this kind of software because it has a high level of security, protecting patient safety. Measures of patient experience can be integrated into the software as well for constant data-driven quality improvement.
4. Review, improve, and streamline your business principles.
Any changes should be made in line with the business vision, mission, and values, creating consistency. This is a great opportunity to review the business principles, using them as a jumping-off point to decide what initiatives to implement and KPIs to measure to improve the patient experience. Business principles can also unite the healthcare team, enabling a continuum of care and improving employee experience which will have a positive ripple effect on patient experience.
5. Work on employee engagement.
Employee engagement is key to delivering high-quality medical care and ensuring all interactions are positive. From liaising with staff to consultations with clinicians, all these interactions add to the patient experience and will be made better by engaging employees with the business. Ensure they have the time and support to perform at their best, for example, reviewing health records before appointments, listening carefully to patient concerns, and walking patients through treatment plans.
6. Optimize workflows and reduce wait times.
One of the key points of frustration patients often bring up is wait times for medical treatment. They don’t want to be left in the waiting room for extensive periods or be left without answers as they wait for a referral to a specialist. As much as possible, from their initial touchpoint to aftercare streamline processes to avoid delays. This means having enough care providers to meet the needs of patients without overbooking or lengthy waitlists.
7. Take a patient-centered approach.
A patient having to reach out for medical treatment is often a very stressful and scary time. Providers can ease the anxiety and overwhelm by taking a patient-centered approach that makes them feel like the priority in the delivery of healthcare services. This involves clinicians demonstrating that they are listening to patients, making them feel seen and understood. It can also look like getting patients involved in decision-making about their treatment. Ensuring patients feel like active participants in their care makes a real difference.
8. Embed empathy and compassion in the experience of care.
As much as creating a positive patient experience is about making practical changes, it also involves cultural changes. What are the values that all care providers embody throughout the healthcare system? Two positive values that will leave patients with a good impression of a healthcare organization are empathy and compassion. Patients don’t just want to feel like they are receiving treatment but that they are being looked after and are in safe hands. Interactions that demonstrate empathy and compassion will create that experience for them.
9. Ensure patient knowledge.
What is often overlooked when it comes to delivering treatment is patient knowledge. To speed up processes, treatment is delivered with minimal consultation with patients. However, by taking the time to talk to patients about their treatment options and what to expect from each treatment, from timelines to side effects, patients will feel a lot more confident in their care. They know what’s going on and how they will get better, that’s a massive relief!
It will also make the jobs of healthcare providers easier and help to optimize the workflow because patients will know what side effects are concerning and require a follow-up appointment or how long to wait for results, for example. It reduces unnecessary concern and unnecessary contact.
10. Provide a comfortable environment.
It may seem basic but the environment healthcare services are delivered within makes a difference. A clean, tidy, and comfortable environment is going to improve the patient experience. From waiting rooms to treatment rooms, these environments make an impression. Consider modernizing your space with new chairs, clear signage or even technological updates to make the experience easier such as a screen that displays the wait time or an iPad patients can use to fill in documents.
11. Respond to feedback.
As you start collecting information about the patient experience as it stands and measure the impact of the improvements you put in place, don’t forget to respond to feedback. It’s important patients feel as if their thoughts and opinions are valued. This can be missed when changes take a while to implement. So follow up with patients who leave feedback, thanking them for their contributions and letting them know how you plan to use it to improve their experience. A little bit of acknowledgment can go a long way.
How to Reach More Patients
Talking of leveraging digital tools, healthcare businesses have achieved major success by using our marketing tools to reach new customers, streamline communication, and build a strong online reputation. From making it easier to gather online reviews to introducing text marketing to keep patients up to date, here’s how we can help your healthcare business thrive.
Podium supports every element of creating a better patient experience. Leverage patient satisfaction by building your Google Reviews profile with a constant stream of recent and positive reviews. Our online review management tool makes establishing a good online reputation and attracting new patients easily.
Communication is key to positive clinical outcomes in the healthcare industry. Streamline the process with our text messaging service. Instead of having to wait on the phone, patients can arrange and manage their appointments (as well as other elements of their healthcare experience) with ease over text.
How about payments? Cash flow is essential in any business. Podium payments enable you to get paid faster. It even integrates with our text messaging service so patients get reminders and direct links to complete payments over text.
Provide the experience your patients deserve and build the business of your dreams.
