By improving patient satisfaction, healthcare businesses aren’t just getting better reimbursements but increasing the chances of their success in many spheres.

Introduction

Patient satisfaction is one of the most important metrics of the success of healthcare businesses. Patient satisfaction today is used by healthcare businesses themselves, along with government agencies, insurance networks, and third-party payers to determine how well a healthcare business is doing. It is no surprise then that healthcare organizations are constantly looking for ways to improve their patient satisfaction levels.

But while healthcare businesses are able to understand the importance of patient satisfaction, they are often unaware of how critical this metric is to the success of their organization. As a result, patient satisfaction often takes a less prioritized role within the processes of an organization.

Here is why healthcare organizations need to look at patient satisfaction from a new lens.

Patient Satisfaction

Patient satisfaction is a critical indicator that tries to measure how satisfied a patient is with the level of healthcare that they have received during the course of their care journey. It is the end result of how the patient feels about their healthcare journey outside of the treatment outcome itself, though the outcome does have a significant impact on patient satisfaction as well.

It is important to note that while patient satisfaction and patient experience are not interchangeable terms, they are quite closely related. Patient experience refers to the total sum of interactions, events, feelings, and thoughts that a patient ‘experiences’ during their care journey. It is easily observable that patient satisfaction is wholly based upon patient experience. Thus, when talking about improving patient satisfaction mentioning topics like strategies to improve patient experiences are relevant since both are directly linked together.

Patient satisfaction is measured through the Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HCAHPS) survey, which scores hospitals across various metrics. This score is then used, along with several other metrics, is used to determine a healthcare organization’s star rating given by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). Additionally, the HCAHPS score is also used to reimburse healthcare providers through Medicare under the Hospital Value-Based Purchasing (VBP) Program.

Internal surveys and third-party surveys have also been used to measure patient satisfaction levels in healthcare organizations.

Impact of patient satisfaction improvement

Apart from the obvious financial and regulatory benefits, higher patient satisfaction levels also have other beneficial effects. Studies have shown that higher patient satisfaction levels have a positive correlation to better patient outcomes, clinical effectiveness, and patient safety, making it a valuable metric to work upon in order to improve the quality of care being provided to patients.

While many healthcare providers scoff at patient satisfaction and experience as being too heavily influenced by mood, external factors, methodology of the survey, and other factors, higher patient satisfaction levels have also been noted to have a positive correlation to higher employee morale and lower staff turnover.

Higher patient satisfaction levels also lead to lowered risks of malpractices suits.

How to improve patient satisfaction

Patient satisfaction improvement can simply be boiled down to effective communication, coordination, and increased empathy. By keeping this simple mantra in mind, healthcare organizations can start planning on what exact steps are needed to improve patient experiences in their healthcare setting.

Healthcare businesses can use Quality Improvement processes developed in other industries to improve patient satisfaction. The use of the improvement cycle, in particular, presents a clear and strategized way for healthcare organizations to achieve their goals.

Healthcare organizations must first plan by identifying their goal and objectives, creating the teams responsible for achieving those goals. The team would then think of interventions needed to achieve those goals. In the next step of the Plan-Do-Study-Act cycle, healthcare organizations must implement the planned interventions.

The next part of the cycle is perhaps the most important, as here healthcare organizations monitor the implemented strategies to test how effective they are, and also test what changes can be made to make them more aligned with their goals. Finally, in the last stage of the cycle, based on the progress made newer interventions can be planned, adopted, and modified as needed.

Conclusion

Healthcare businesses are defined by their patient satisfaction levels. The success of the healthcare businesses can be majorly attributed to patient outcomes and patient satisfaction. While healthcare organizations are constantly trying to improve both, they often forget how vital a role patient satisfaction plays in the industry.

Healthcare organizations today need to focus on improving patient satisfaction as a major priority, but doing so isn’t easy. By improving the entire patient experience during the continuum of care, healthcare organizations can also start improving patient satisfaction levels.

Here’s where BraveLabs comes in. We aid healthcare organizations to improve metrics like patient experience, patient engagement, healthcare brand awareness, and brand loyalty. With our proprietary frameworks and expertise using tools like patient journey management, BraveLabs helps healthcare businesses turn patient satisfaction levels all the way up.