TO: CHIEF OPERATING OFFICERFROM: CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICERRE: ARE OUR PATIENT SATISFACTION INITIATIVES WORKING?With consumers enjoying more provider choices than ever before, hospitals are looking beyond outcomes to boost patient satisfaction. From latte bars to plasma-screen televisions, hospitals are experimenting with multiple strategies for improving the hospital experience. But one patient survey suggests that menu upgrades and on-demand movies may not be all that important. What patients crave, Press Ganey's 2006 Health Care Satisfaction Report contends, is good old-fashioned TLC: providers who pay attention to their needs, answer call buttons, include them in treatment decisions and keep them informed. If your hospital isn't doing those things, maybe you should take a fresh look at what healthcare consumers really want.
How do we find out what our patients really think? Ask them before they leave the hospital, says Todd McGovern, senior director of operations and business development at Inova Fair Oaks Hospital, part of a six-hospital nonprofit health system in Fairfax County, Va. Using Bethesda, Md.-based GetWellNetwork Inc. in-hospital interactive services, the 182-staffed-bed Fair Oaks has instant access to patient concerns via wireless keyboards that route patient feedback directly to the hospital's patient care director and administrative team. "The true value to us is the real-time feedback we get from them while they are here, which allows us to get some fairly candid feedback," McGovern says.
What should we be doing that we're not doing now?Hospitals can learn something from other industries' consumer satisfaction initiatives, says Gary Ferguson, chief operating officer for the nonprofit Christiana Care Health System, a private two-hospital system in Wilmington, Del. One technique that's been employed in the retail industry could find its way into the hospital: secret shoppers. "Other industries have used them successfully: Bring people in and have them go through the processes and then meet with the management team and the people they've encountered to give them feedback on what their experience has been," Ferguson says.
Does anything more than quality care really matter? McGovern says Fair Oaks subscribes to the 80-20 rule. "Eighty or 90 percent really is about how you treat people." With growing consumer sophistication, however, the amenities that compose that last 20 percent can make a difference, McGovern says. "We want people to leave our facilities and brag about the experience, and sometimes it's those little differences that might make you think it was an excellent experience."
Which patient satisfaction initiatives are wasting our money?With patient satisfaction being "a paramount goal" at Fair Oaks, McGovern says anything the health system does to address the issue is not a waste of money. Christiana Care's Ferguson says the most accurate gauge of whether a patient satisfaction initiative is worthwhile may be to ask patients and staff directly. "'Do you think this helps?' 'Does this make your life easier or better?' Even if it's just the nursing team that says it's working well, we will leave that initiative in-even though we're not totally sure it has a direct correlation with improving scores," Ferguson says.
How do we market our patient satisfaction successes?Ferguson says Christiana Care markets itself internally. "We want our employees to think of themselves as if they were the patient and how they interact with patients and visitors." The health system occasionally tries direct marketing to healthcare consumers, but Ferguson adds that such efforts are "not the primary focus." Comparing satisfaction rates with the competition can be difficult, McGovern says, because not every hospital in a given market obtains satisfaction data from the same firm. Until a more comprehensive grading system is used, McGovern says Fair Oaks' emphasis will be marketing patient satisfaction directly to physicians. "Physicians in almost every case drive where their patients go for care. Physicians know that when their patients are happy and satisfied with the care we provide, they choose us over other places."
-John Commins
Magazine
