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3 Patient Experience Improvements Every Marketer Can Make

 |  By Marianne@example.com  
   April 23, 2014

Patient experience lays the groundwork for every marketing initiative, yet many healthcare marketers feel they do not have a direct influence on how that experience is delivered. Here's how marketers' internal communication initiatives and C-suite influence can bring about positive change in the lives of patients.

The patient experience at any hospital or health system lays the groundwork for every marketing initiative, and yet thanks to barriers such as department silos many marketers feel they do not have a direct influence on how that experience is delivered. But while marketers are not involved directly in patient care, their internal communication initiatives and C-suite influence can be used to break down those roadblocks and bring about positive change in the lives of patients.

"Marketers have always had a vested interest in the patient experience. After all, without a positive patient experience you cannot build loyalty or improve the bottom line," Kristin Baird, president and CEO of Baird Group, a consulting firm specializing in customer service improvement for healthcare organizations, tells HealthLeaders Media. "Because marketers are skilled at listening to the voice of the consumer, they often have the skill set to get a clear picture of the current reality."

The most glaring weak points in the patient experience often lie in a lack of intentional culture within an organization, she says. The marketing director can play a key role in guiding that culture by opening a dialogue with other hospital leaders and pushing them to think about how they can create a consistent, positive, and patient-centered experience.

Marketers are also uniquely positioned to call for innovative change, since they are often on the forefront of new trends, both within the healthcare world and in the general consumer market.

Here are the top three ways marketers can use their skill sets to improve the patient experience.

Incorporating Patient Voices
A growing number of organizations are truly beginning to listen to feedback from patients and families and are incorporating what they're learning into how they approach the patient experience. It seems like a no-brainer—and is certainly something the consumer market has been doing for years—but in healthcare many organizations are just beginning to see the light.

"One promising trend in improving overall care is the growing emphasis on incorporating voices of patients, consumers, and caregivers into the design of programs and policies," Sachin H. Jain, chief medical information and innovation officer at Merck and an attending physician at the Boston VA Medical Center, recently wrote on Harvard Business Review's site. "Health care is at the beginning of a dialogue with the world on evidence, outcomes, and patient well-being that will transform care.

Of course, the difficulty lies in finding authentic patient voices that provide a learning opportunity, which is where marketing comes in.

"[Marketers should] use their skills to study the patient experience and then paint a picture of the current reality—beyond survey data," Baird says.

She suggests marketers organize fact-finding indicatives such as focus groups, patient interviews, and mystery shopping. Once those are underway, marketers should conduct a culture assessment and gap analysis to identify key opportunities, and then craft a strategic communications plan that bridges the patient experience to the organization's mission, vision, and values.

Marketers are particularly adept at finding and communicating links between the patient experience and other key goals and efforts including quality and safety, Baird says.

Helping Staff Walk in Patients' Shoes
A growing number of US medical schools are incorporating the patient experience into their curriculum, which previously only had room for courses on clinical care.

The University of Pennsylvania's School of Medicine runs a program called Longitudinal Experience to Appreciate Patient Perspectives (LEAPP) that pairs med students with chronically ill patients to help them see medical treatment from the patient's perspective.

The goal of the program is to make sure each student understand that every patient who walks into an exam room comes with their own unique story and experience, Horace DeLisser, MD, a critical care specialist and associate dean for diversity and inclusion at Penn's Perelman School of Medicine, told a Philadelphia news site.

"And if I can understand that, that enables me to do a better job for a patient, provide care that's meaningful on their terms," he said. "If you get in that habit of trying to understand a patient's story, what's going through their experience, that helps inform and guide how to engage the patient."

While programs like LEAPP are helping the next generation of physicians gain a better understanding of the patient experience, hospitals and health systems can set up similar programs to educate their current staff.

Patient stories that give an insight into their experience at your organization can be shared internally in a number of ways, in meetings, via email, or on video hosted on the intranet. If marketers can take a patient story and create content that succeeds in a provider or staff member stepping into the patient's shoes for a moment, that can affect how they approach the patient experience.

Learning from Consumer Technology
Disney has long been a benchmark for companies and organizations in every field when it comes to providing a positive consumer experience. The company recently added a new technological feature that may be adaptable to hospitals.

Last summer the Disney parks introduced MagicBands, colorful plastic wristbands that allow guests use them as fast passes and room keys, and also store information such as preferences and personal data.

It's not hard to think about how this technology could be used in healthcare, perhaps replacing the traditional hospital wristband altogether. With this sort of wristband or other similar piece of mobile technology, patients' information and preferences will follow them through the hospital and even beyond as they go for tests or procedures, rather than stay on the whiteboard as is often done now.

Marketers can position themselves as thought leaders by keeping tabs on this sort of consumer technology and suggesting ways it can be incorporated into their organization. While it may not be in a hospital's budget to change out all ID bracelets for Disney's high-tech versions, there are still lessons to be learned and takeaways that can improve the patient experience now.

A HealthLeaders Media webcast, Patient Experience & HCAHPS: Lessons from Community Health Systems and Baird Group, will be broadcast on Thursday, April 24, 2014, from 1:00 to 2:30 p.m. ET. Speakers are Debra S. Landers, vice president and chief marketing officer for Community Health Systems, and Kristin Baird, RN, BSN, MHA, president and CEO of Baird Group.

Marianne Aiello is a contributing writer at HealthLeaders Media.

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