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.
[3 MIN READ]
“It’s all about communication!”
The world of medicine has changed by leaps and bounds over recent decades. Computers are part of our daily lives, and technological advances have significantly improved our ability to diagnose and treat diseases that were once thought incurable.
Despite this incredible progress, healthcare providers continue to commit far too many medical errors. And unfortunately, many of these mistakes are simply caused by “poor communication.”
As leaders in the healthcare industry, we spend a great deal of time and resources analyzing patient outcomes and looking for areas of improvement. In triage, this typically translates to a leadership audit of triage decisions and a report back to staff on areas of improvement.
It’s important to periodically evaluate your audit process for effectiveness and sustainability. To evaluate your current process of triage record reviews, consider the following:
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.
As we head into the peak of flu season, many facilities are already feeling the effects of increased volumes, such as:
Dr. Mary Smith, the Chair of the Obstetrics and Gynecology department at County Hospital, was en route to a meeting with Dr. John Bart, Chief Medical Officer. The purpose of the meeting was to review patient complaints originating out of her service. While waiting for the elevator, Dr. Smith was hurriedly approached by an obviously distressed Susan Jones, the Labor & Delivery head nurse.
