The healthcare industry is becoming highly competitive. One way to gain a competitive advantage is by improving the quality of healthcare that is being provided. Healthcare businesses can do this by enhancing patient experience. Here are some strategies to improve patient satisfaction.

Introduction

The healthcare industry is one of the most competitive industries in the country today. The healthcare industry today counts 784,626 companies in the sector and is the country’s largest employer. In particular, there are 6,093 hospitals currently operating in the US, according to the American Hospital Association Hospital Statistics 2022. These 6,000 odd hospitals command a revenue of over $1 trillion. 

As costs increase, companies are competing over getting new patients and customers. In this business environment, each business and brand is trying hard to achieve any competitive edge that they can get over their competitors. 

One of these methods is by improving the quality of care that they are providing to patients and customers. The primary service of hospitals is of course to provide healthcare to their patients. But the quality of healthcare can obviously differ from hospital to hospital, just like the quality of food would be varied from one restaurant to another. But just like how raising the quality of food becomes increasingly hard after reaching a threshold of performance, so does the difficulty in raising the quality of healthcare itself. So how does one try to improve their competitive edge over their competitors in such a situation?

The easy answer to this question is that businesses should focus on other aspects of service that improve the overall experience of customers. Coming back to our restaurant analogy, if there are two restaurants with similar food and similar quality of food, which one would customers like to choose, the one where the wait times are long, the staff rude, and the seats are shabby, or the restaurant where customers are seated in time, the staff is pleasant and informative, and the decor beautiful? We don’t need to tell you the answer because you know it yourself – the restaurant which gives an overall better experience to its customers is going to have to have the competitive edge. 

Similarly, the healthcare businesses that are enhancing patient experience will not only have a competitive advantage but will also be able to deliver great healthcare outcomes.

Patient Experience

Patient experience can mean a lot of different things to different stakeholders. Without getting involved in a highly philosophical debate about the exact dimensions of what the word entails, we can define it broadly that most would agree with. Patient experience is the sum of all the things that happen to and the feelings that the patients have in their healthcare journey. It is the totality of all of their interactions. 

While not relevant to the conversation at hand, it is important to mention that the reason we take care in defining terms is that they not only have traditional meanings but also often differing meanings in strategic planning. 

Patient experiences not only take into account the technical aspects of healthcare, which are aspects like the treatment, diagnosis, advice, and more, but also the consumer-facing aspects of the journey. Aspects like cost, convenience, comfort, trust, and more are the second half of the patient experience and at least, as equally important as the technical aspects. 

The medical industry had often denigrated and ignored the second half of the patient journey. For a long time, the healthcare industry abhorred the use of words like “consumer” and “customer” for their patients, choosing to keep these definitions separate from each other. And for the most part, patients were willing to go along with these practices as well. They didn’t demand the same level of service they would in a different industry or segment and were mostly satisfied with just receiving healthcare in the first place. 

But as patients began to spend more and more on their healthcare and with increasing competition, the healthcare industry began to realize that patients are customers. They are the individuals who are choosing to make the decisions about their own healthcare journey. They choose where to receive their care, whether to receive the care or not, whether to seek additional care and take preventative measures. 

It is for this reason that the healthcare industry, or at least some parts of it, realized that reimbursement is now not just based on treatment outcomes but patient experiences as well. 

But there is an added benefit, the measures that seek to improve patient experiences also improve the overall quality of healthcare being provided. As stated by the Institute of Medicine (IOM) in the major report at the turn of the millennium, the quality of healthcare is dependent on six goals. According to the report, the goals of quality healthcare are:

The last three are goals that not only improve the quality of healthcare but also impact the patient experience as well. The first three goals focus on the technical aspect of healthcare. By focusing on providing timely, efficient, and patient-centered care healthcare businesses are able to focus on providing quality healthcare while also improving patient experiences.

Conclusion

In the digital age, patients are consumers and now take a greater role in their own healthcare journey. They search for providers online, look for information on their ailments, and look for reviews on hospitals. 

If your healthcare business is not ready to capitalize on these prospective customers, then you are at risk of losing out to your competitors. 

BraveLabs gives your healthcare business the digital edge that you need to stand out on top. Through our services, you can learn how to deliver great patient experiences and grow your business.