Patient satisfaction is one of the most important metrics for healthcare businesses. But improving patient satisfaction levels is not as quick as many businesses expect it to be.

Introduction

Healthcare organizations are constantly competing with each other. The healthcare industry may be over a $1 trillion industry, but that doesn’t stop organizations of all sizes from competing with each other to acquire and retain patients. As healthcare costs continue to increase, and the average healthcare spending per adult increases rapidly, the prize at stake in this competition also keeps rising.

One of the ways that healthcare organizations can come out over a competitor is through their Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems or HCAHPS survey score. The HCAHPS survey measures levels of patient satisfaction and assigns a score to each healthcare organization based on the patients’ responses to the survey. While the HCAHPS survey is not the only one measuring patient satisfaction, it is the one used by federal and government agencies to also hand government-subsidized reimbursements.

But what is patient satisfaction in this context?

Patient Satisfaction

Patient satisfaction is a metric or a performance measure or a performance indicator. While it is simply the extent to which a patient is satisfied with their health care in the extent of an injury or illness, it is used to assess healthcare organizations.

Patient satisfaction and the methodology of measuring it has been mostly set in stone in the later 1990s, though the metrics’ importance has risen in recent years. This is because patient satisfaction is directly linked to the amount of reimbursement that healthcare organizations are receiving after the introduction of the Affordable Care Act and similar legislation and the Hospital Value-Based Purchasing Program.

It is important to state that while patient experience is what drives patient satisfaction, the two are in fact different terms. Patient experience describes an individual’s experience during their healthcare journey and their interactions with the healthcare setting. The importance of patient experience is that patient experience is what patients base their satisfaction levels on.

How to Increase Patient Satisfaction

While many healthcare organizations are worried about the fact that patient satisfaction metrics reward attractive healthcare rather than effective healthcare, research into patient satisfaction scores in the US has revealed that high patient satisfaction levels are often reported alongside high patient outcomes. This correlation highlights the fact that healthcare organizations do not need to make a trade-off between effective and ‘attractive’ healthcare.

Healthcare organizations trying to improve patient satisfaction levels should always keep in mind that the prime objective should be to make healthcare more patient-centric. By understanding the patients’ needs and wants, patient satisfaction becomes a suddenly easy objective to achieve.

Here is BraveLabs’ short guide to increasing patient satisfaction in healthcare settings.

Improving Communication

Healthcare settings are notorious for their communication gaps between healthcare providers and healthcare receivers. It is not a coincidence that the HCAHPS measures domains like communication with doctors, communication with nurses, and responsiveness of hospital staff in their scoring system.

By improving communication channels between patients and providers, healthcare organizations are able to reduce one of the key reasons for discomfort in a patient’s experience. Timely, easy to understand and comprehensive information given to patients is key. Information about the patient’s diagnosis, treatment outcomes, expected outcomes, what procedures are necessary and why, and the expected time are just a few of the questions that healthcare providers can answer.

Waiting times

Waiting times are always anxiety-inducing and frustrating, no matter the setting. But in healthcare settings, additional waiting times can be one of the biggest challenges that healthcare organizations face when it comes to improving patient satisfaction. But again, clear communication channels can make this obstacle easier to overcome.

Research has shown that patients don’t mind long waiting times but only if they have been informed beforehand of the expected change in waiting time and are generally even more satisfied with their care.

Doctor-Patient Relationship

As part of the communication channel improvement, patient satisfaction levels are directly dependent on the quality of the relationship between a healthcare provider and a patient. Patients with a healthcare provider who constantly engages with them to build trust and loyalty will have higher satisfaction levels than patients who have a healthcare provider who does not engage with them or with who they do not have trust.

Healthy engagement from the side of the healthcare provider leads to a significant increase in patient experience improvement and thus higher, patient satisfaction levels.

Conclusion

Customer journey mapping allows healthcare businesses to understand the increasingly complex ways that today’s customers communicate with them. By understanding the myriad touchpoints, healthcare businesses are able to ensure that they fill up the cracks in their customer journey models and improve their customer experience.

Healthcare businesses today need to understand that they are not just serving patients but customers instead. With customer experience being almost as important as the healthcare service being delivered itself, it is no wonder that healthcare companies that are focusing on improving customer experiences are coming out on top.

BraveLabs is a medical digital transformation and marketing company helping healthcare organizations navigate this new revolution in the healthcare industry. With BraveLabs, healthcare organizations can integrate customer journey mapping into their business processes and start improving customer and patient experiences in real-time.

Contact BraveLabs to understand how CJM can be integrated into your healthcare model.