Blog & Articles

[4 MIN READ]

All of us experience a never-ending number of first impressions.

Consider that first visit to a restaurant that was highly recommended by friends. After being seated, five or ten minutes go by without a server coming to the table. When the server finally arrives, they seem distracted with no discernible facial expression. How does this indifference make you feel?

Or what about the flight attendant who treats you like an empty seat when you try to ask a simple question?

In either case, the chance for a warm, enjoyable experience is diminished after such a cold beginning.

The same is true for patients in their initial encounter with healthcare providers, whether they’re physicians, nurses or other personnel.

7 minute read

It appeared to be a typical, run-of-the-mill board meeting at Hospital System “X.” Patient admissions had been slowly on the rise; healthcare teams seemed to be handling the increasing demand for services as the hospital facility continued to display an inviting appearance.

Early in the meeting, the hospital CFO presented the data requested by board members; suddenly things took a dramatic turn. Several months of data had revealed that a profit drain had developed within the system. And worse news was that month-to-month figures showed this was not just a temporary “blip” in financial performance, but that it had become a consistent and expanding downward trend. Hospital System “X” still was operating in the black, but not to the satisfaction of the board. They immediately called upon top management to identify the problem areas and propose appropriate solutions.

[4 MIN READ]

Every patient – regardless of the time of day or department to which they present – needs to encounter a high-quality experience. Improving patient experience and ensuring its consistency involves reducing the variability between departments, clinicians and shifts.

To achieve this high goal, you need to get buy-in from the entire clinical community – an effort led by clinicians for clinicians to help all truly understand and buy into the mission and purpose of providing a high-quality patient experience.

Using the industry analyses to galvanize organizational support for defining a provider-patient communication model is a great first step.

Physician engagement is sometimes cited by organizations as a challenge on its path to implementing a successful practice change initiative.

Below are five tips for engaging physicians using continuing medical education (CME):

Patient experience has emerged as one of the most important aspects of medical training in today’s healthcare environment. Patients are not only demanding satisfaction in their experience, they are researching hospital and provider satisfaction ratings to make sure others have had a positive experience prior to seeking medical care themselves.

The patient satisfaction survey, HCAHPS, reflects patients’ perspectives of their hospital experience. The survey results are used to compare hospitals to each other using measures that are significant to healthcare consumers. HCAHPS scores are used by CMS to determine a slice of reimbursement to hospitals, making up 25% of a hospital’s Total Performance Score in the Hospital Value-Based Purchasing program for 2016.

Providing a better patient experience continues to challenge hospitals and other medical facilities, despite:

1. The numerous national conferences examining this issue and proposing means to better achieve it;
2. The countless newspaper stories, magazine articles and blogs discussing this over the past several years.

What prompted this deluge of interest?