3 Inexpensive Ways to Enhance Patient Experience

Fancy amenities such as gourmet meals, healing gardens, and multi-million dollar expansion projects can make patients feel good about a hospital stay, but there are cheaper ways to bolster the patient experience.

When one thinks of drastically improving the patient experience at a hospital or health system, it's easy to conjure up images of multi-million dollar state-of-the-art expansion projects, with spacious private rooms orbiting a cavernous light-filled atrium that leads to an expansive healing garden.

Amenities such as these are wonderful but out of reach for many, if not most, organizations. But there are other ways—inexpensive ways—to bolster the patient experience. Here are a few ideas:

1. Offer Open Visiting Hours
Offering open visiting hours improves the patient and family experience and does not cause interference for hospital staff, according to research published in the Journal for Healthcare Quality.

For the study, researchers compared patient satisfaction scores before and after the enactment of a 24-hour visitation policy at a 690-bed tertiary acute care facility and 78-bed rehabilitation hospital. They found that, for the first eight months of the open visitation policy, the medical center received 14,444 visitors during the after-hours period from 8PM to AM. And, contrary to common belief, during this time, there was no change in the incidence of security events and no increase in the number of complaints from patients or visitors.

Better yet, surveys showed an increase in patient satisfaction scores. Staff members also received fewer phone calls requesting patient updates and reported that the experience was positive.

"Our experience suggests that implementation of open visitation at acute care and long-term care institutions can be accomplished with little disruption, is well utilized by visitors, improves the patient and family experience, and is generally accepted by hospital staff," the authors wrote.

Allowing patients and family members to spend more time together, whenever is convenient for them, is one of the easiest, least expensive ways to improve the patient experience, and likely create a more positive healing environment, too.

2. Offer Waiting Room Charging Stations
If you've ever had a layover in an airport without a power kiosk while your phone slowly drains its one remaining bar of battery that you needed to call for a ride when you finally get home, you understand how critical a well-placed charging station can be.

Its importance magnifies when a patient or a family member is trying to keep loved ones up to date on their condition, or even if they need to refuel the battery of their e-readers, tablets, or MP3 players to help them get through their treatment or wait time.

In Nashville, a teenager created a charging station for a hospital emergency room after learning about the family of a friend who was rushed to the ER, whose mobile phones soon ran out of battery. The idea became the teen's Eagle Scout project and he financed it through fundraisers and carwashes.

"This has been a wonderful asset to our families and we are grateful for Andy and his creative ideas in bringing this need to a reality," a representative of Vanderbilt's Monroe Carell Jr. Children's Hospital said.

Purchasing charging stations is worth the investment in the patient experience—and may finally keep that one vending machine from repeatedly begin unplugged in the name of battery life.

3. Lower Your Parking Rates
While a growing number of hospitals are adding valet services for patients and family, sometimes a smaller gesture can make a big impact. The University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics recently announced they would decrease their maximum daily parking fee from $18 to $10.

It should be noted that this change came after a local TV station criticized the organization's high parking rates. While it was a smart move for the University of Iowa to lower its rate after the fact, it would have been a more positive public relations effort had the organization reviewed its fees before a public outcry arose.

Of course it's impossible to know what issue might become a hot topic with the local news outlets, but this incident serves as a reminder for hospitals to make sure fees and rates are competitive. If you are able to offer even a small discount, patients and their family members will appreciate the few extra bucks that stay in their pockets.

And that appreciation just might be reflected in your patient experience scores.