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TITANWEBAGENCY.COM 801-783-3101

Patient experience impact has significantly increased over the past few years.

A positive patient experience has to incorporate new technologies and data.

With constant pressure to improve outcomes, reduce costs, and increase patient volume; enhancing patient experience has to be just as important.

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The goal is to achieve proactive and personalized healthcare. It goes far beyond doctor-patient relationships, as patient experience can also incorporate the following variables:

• Online booking• Valet parking• Concierges• WiFi• Upgraded entertainment options (streaming services,

premium video game consoles, tablets, etc.)• Gourmet meals• Turn-down service

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As patients review and share their satisfaction on social media, the opportunity for you is huge!

If you can enhance your patients’ experience and be known as a premium provider that goes above and beyond, imagine what that will do to your bottom line as word spreads.

Traditionally, healthcare providers are focused on patient volume and profit. This philosophy will have to change; patient experience must go hand-in-hand with the strategic vision of the business.

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As staying competitive is crucial to the longevity of an organization, providers need to start changing from a single-patient view.

Today, it's important to incorporate all of your touch-points to develop a new holistic view of the patient before, during and after treatment.

So how do you improve patient experience?

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1. Adopt a Patient-Centric Business Model

Healthcare providers need to start focusing on a patient-centric model like the approach of commercial brands.

In order to execute a successful paradigm shift to this new model, EVERY part of the organization will need to reflect the change.

*Simply put: adding it as a bullet point to an overall mission statement will not suffice.

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Put patients first and it will certainly enhance patient satisfaction.

Not adopting this approach puts the organization at risk of focusing on activities that don’t have an impact on patient satisfaction.

Whenever you need to, always swing back and reacquaint yourself with patient-centric healthcare to stay on course.

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2. Get Doctors to Improve Patient Engagement

Studies show that physicians have an impact of up to 75% of a healthcare oraganizations’ revenue. As a result, physicians play a vital part in providing an enhanced patient experience.

Because of this, medical facilities need to engage with practitioners as partners in care to improve their own experiences.

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Also, it’s important to properly train medical staff to manage your patients’ grievances properly. A well trained and happy employee will add another dimension to the service they offer, thus improving patient engagement.

As I'm sure you know, the Affordable Care Act has significantly transformed healthcare. Some would say that it has changed the focus from a profit-driven business model to one that is focused on patient satisfaction.

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Further, today's patient has evolved. Perhaps it is a bit of entitlement, I'm not sure, but as you've no doubt seen, they have very high expectations.

Patients are more engaged with their treatment options (many do their own research) and have come to expect the same type of interaction they have with commercial brands outside of the healthcare industry.

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As a result, the paradigm shift has changed organizational priorities with more focus placed on analytics and metrics.

To cater to the modern patient, significant emphasis needs to be placed on the following:

• Quality of care• Communication• Expectations• Access• Time spent• Education

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With 1 in 20 Google searches falling under patient-initiated medical searches, it is important to note that this is the first point of contact in many cases.

According to Google, 77% of patients search for information before booking an appointment.

As a result, the demand for physician (digital) marketing will continue to grow as practitioners work toward improved visibility in a crowded marketplace.

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It’s also important to note that 62% of smartphone owners use their mobile device to search for information regarding health conditions.

As mobile marketing is different from traditional digital marketing, physicians need to devise specific mobile strategies to grow their business.

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Important healthcare marketing statistics to consider:

• Online videos are HUGE; 1 in 8 patients view them to learn about medical procedures or medicines.

• Healthcare provider selection is heavily influenced by social media (so it’s important to maintain a significant social media presence).

• Traditional marketing in healthcare doesn’t work like it used to. However, inbound marketing has the potential to deliver 54% more leads.

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3. Understand your Patient

To provide improved patient experiences, you have to first understand the patient.

Create opportunities for various staff members to work with other departments within your facility. This allows them to develop an understanding of the patients’ experience throughout the facility.

It’s important to be able to refer back to these experiences when making important decisions.

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Further, collecting and maintaining a robust database of patient interactions can help you with your overall patient-centric strategy.

Performing these tasks will essentially make it easier for healthcare providers to identify opportunities to improve the patient experience.

As a result, in-house research should always be clearly defined and actionable.

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4. Providing Superior Patient(Customer) Serivce is Vital

Everyone working for the organization needs to be attentive, friendly, and treat the patient with respect and courtesy throughout the interaction.

Give your undivided attention to the patient, and you will leave the patient feeling:

• Happy• Respected• Valued

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If improving patient satisfaction is your goal, the staff need to be trained to keep their personal life (as well as any negative feelings towards the facility itself or their colleagues) away from the patients’ ears.

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5. Seek Out Patient Interactions

All staff should be encouraged to look for opportunities to engage with patients. Patients don’t expect employees that don't directly provide care to remember them.

So any positive interactions between administrative staff and the patient can go a long way toward improving patient satisfaction.

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6. Incorporate a Strategy to Decrease Anxiety

Patients can sometimes arrive full of fear and anxiety. To help alleviate stress, send information about the procedure, the institution, the staff, and tips and reminders before they come.

For the most part, these functions can be automated, usually through some sort of marketing automation service, including email marketing.

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7. Set Up a System of Accountability

In order to consistently provide exceptional patient experience, your organization must devise a measurement system for accountability that tracks anonymous feedback.

This data can also be used to motivate staff members by publicly recognizing those who provided good service; and other employees can use this as a benchmark to improve and learn from the success of others.

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When dealing with discontent, always create a plan to improve accountability.

Information derived from employee satisfaction surveys can also be used as a tool to change staff behaviors.

It’s hard to improve something without measuring it, but improvement methodologies like Six Sigma can be utilized in this situation to successfully change staff behavior.

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8. Embrace Big Data Analytics

As the world becomes more connected and digitized, a personal health cloud is important to access vital data from everyday devices:

• Smartphone• Wearables• Tablets• Machine learning

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As the Internet of Things gains significant traction over the next few years, a proper system to collect, manage, analyze, and store the data will be imperative.

This, in turn, will enable practitioners to make better informed and personalized decisions concerning a patient’s health.

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Big data health clouds and machine learning technologies will need to be put in place to automatically predict and prescribe.

The biggest challenge is getting around the structural and regulatory design. Unlike commercial industries, healthcare operates on payment for services through intermediated payments or reimbursement. In most cases, patients themselves are not paying directly for the services rendered.

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As a result, it impedes the collection of data to analyze and use to improve patient experience.

Further, data-driven behavior changing tools and remote diagnostics models won’t financially benefit providers as there is no current framework for reimbursement.

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9. Build Behavior Modifying Tools

Behaviors like smoking, drinking, and poor diet are major contributors to high medical expenses. Applications that have the ability to support healthy behaviors can help make a real change across the spectrum.

Further, it provides a wealth of data that can be used to identify new opportunities to enhance patient experience. Also, it can support patients after being discharged from a clinical setting.

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New mobile applications need to be built to help guide the patient and the behavior, rather than just track it. Personalized guidance gives the patient a real opportunity to develop healthy behaviors. Measuring patient experience and satisfaction, can determine the progress made by the whole institution.

It’s important to note that these exercises have to be ongoing if you truly want to achieve excellent patient satisfaction.

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You can energize your patient experience strategy by focusing the following key points:

• The patient is the primary focus of everything

• Be clear about your goals and why you want to achieve them

• Maintain a sustainable momentum so that the changes become part of the organizational culture quickly

• Maintain top to bottom leadership vision and support

• Make sure that everyone in the organization is engaged

• Be persistent and committed to continuous action

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10. Create a Positive Environmentfor Patients and Staff

Like any other business, having a positive work culture makes a big difference.

An empowered workforce has the ability to empower the patients they serve.

These days, most organizations have a patient and family advisory council, so why not put them to good use?

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These groups provide important feedback.

It’s a great way to learn first-hand about satisfactory ways to deal with situations that arise.

Many doctors and staff members may experience compassion fatigue and even burnout. Digital tools can be structured to monitor this to ensure that patients receive compassionate care. After all, our experiences are what influence better overall health and better outcomes.

TITANWEBAGENCY.COM 801-783-3101

What steps have you taken to improve patient experience?

What is your biggest challenge in improving patient experience in your office?

Conclusion

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