It is no longer enough to deliver good healthcare to patients to run a successful medical practice. More has to be done to retain patients and attract new ones. Medical practices are not exempted from the need to guarantee efficient services from the point at which a patient seeks out medical assistance to the aftermath of their medical appointment. Ensuring seamlessness of the patient’s journey plays a role in ensuring that the patient is satisfied in their experience of a health provider. However, it is important to know that in balancing patient experience and clinical objectives, healthcare professionals should not relegate the quality of medical care in the effort to score customer satisfaction points. It is never a zero-sum game in healthcare, as medical excellence should be matched with an approach to care that is convenient while being clinically sound and empathy-driven.
In the United States, The Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (CAHPS®) measure patients’ experiences, enabling healthcare providers obtain regular feedback from their patients, and enabling aggregation of reviews across multiple providers within a region as well as nation-wide, with the overarching goal of continuously improving patient care. In the same way health providers in the US can leverage CAHPS survey results to identify customer pain points, good practices, and opportunities for improvement, there is room in global health practices beyond the US to develop contextualized systems of assessing and improving patient care.
Some of the ways healthcare organizations and professionals can improve the patient experience at their practices include:
1. Communication
Strive to share as much information as possible with potential patients to help them understand your medical services and approaches to medical care. The 2020 Patient Access Journey Report by Kyrus reports that 57% of consumers go online when searching for a new provider, and nearly half visit a health system website in the process. Thus, an online presence goes a long way in communicating clear, accurate, and consistent information on your offerings to guide expectations of potential patients before they book your services. Information such as hospital location, opening hours, insurance coverage, doctor profiles portray necessary knowledge patients should be armed with from the start of their journey with a healthcare organization.
2. Scheduling
To facilitate the reception of medical care in a health facility beyond the informational stage, proper scheduling systems should be put in place. The linkage between internal and external systems underlying scheduling should be flexible and coordinated such that changes and updates reflect quickly across the board. The process of appointment booking should be convenient, whether online or offline or a blend of both. The 2020 Patient Access Journey Report by Kyrus reports that while 48% of patients prefer to schedule appointments by phone, 43% now prefer to book online, and this percentage continues to rise annually. It is worthwhile to put blended systems in place to ensure that potential patients can either call in or self-serve through online scheduling platforms.
3. Wait time
According to Fierce Healthcare, 1 in 5 patients report they have switched doctors because of long wait times. SImilarly, they report that 30% of patients have left a doctor appointment because of a long wait. Wait time remains a pivotal factor in overall patient experience. In mitigating wait times, adequate effort on proper scheduling practices is important. To do this, businesses have to invest in efficient call centre, booking and scheduling systems. Self-scheduling systems, automated reminders, automated check-ins, self-service systems such as kiosks and tablets matched with automated payment solutions help eliminate structural drivers of delays and extended waiting times for patients. At the end of the day, a culture of honesty and timely communication with patients to keep them informed of the status of their appointment and to manage expectations in situations of changes or delays could be the difference between a deliberate approach to patient experience and a mismanaged one.
4. Responsiveness
Feedback from patients should correspond with prompt action and improvements where necessary. Insights from patient experiences should be met with closed loops such that issues are addressed as they come. Systems of alert at different stages of the customer journey could facilitate triggers for the respective points-of-contact to follow-up with patients. These real-time follow-ups can resolve issues such as prescription errors, misdiagnosis, allergic reactions from prescribed medication, leading to prompt rectification as required. In the broader scale, for issues requiring action at the strategic, facility-wide level, the aggregation of these alerts and causes for rectification could help create better systems of prevention.
5. Clinical care
Responding to the question of how to improve interactions with patients and increase satisfaction scores, Ann Weinacker of the Stanford Hospital & Clinics mentioned that “patients want doctors who listen and treat them with respect.” Indeed, it is hardly arguable that sound medical judgement ought to be matched with empathy, active listening, and an intentional show of care and understanding from physicians. Patients are attentive to the level of care their doctors show and the extent to which the doctor values their follow-up care. MedPB reports that 75% of patients perceive that their physicians lack empathy and 62% felt they deserved a better patient experience considering the cost. These go to show that a greater degree of intentionality is essential on the part of physicians to show patients true care in a way that both comforts and heals.
Healthcare is evolving
The healthcare industry is leveraging the digital revolution now more than ever due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Telehealth is becoming mainstream, and patients are now acclimatizing to accessing medicare through online platforms, talking to doctors virtually, interacting with health facilities through medical portals hosted on mobile applications or websites. The opportunities to engage with patients takes on a more widespread dimension in this light. According to Avtex’s 2021 Omnichannel Healthcare Experience report, more than one-third of GenZ and Millenials attribute apps and portal options as their preferred communication channels for healthcare. The chance to cater to this demographic of patients is immense and invaluable.
Even beyond the pandemic as we look in the future, hybrid models that favour a blend of digital and non-digital approaches to medical care, improving on the benefits each approach presents, will be effective for better patient experience. At the end of the day, so long as accessibility, convenience, health protection and excellence of medical care are guaranteed, the emerging patient economy will be better anchored for efficacy.
