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Are we starting our improvements in patient experience at the right point in time?<\/li>\nWith the concept of improved customer experience being so important to many enterprises, it\u2019s not surprising that healthcare<\/a> has been swept along too.\u00a0 Yet, an important part of the patient experience in healthcare is being overlooked, and this oversight is hurting both the bottom line and how a patient engages with you.<\/p>\n Let\u2019s look at a common understanding of the concept of patient experience. \u00a0There\u2019s quite a bit of material out there on it, and research by the Beryl Institute stands out. \u00a0Their extensive work on defining patient experience <\/a>is a great place to start and helps put a construct for the issues many are seeing. \u00a0The Beryl Institute proposes that patient experience is \u201cthe sum of all interactions, shaped by an organization\u2019s culture, that influence patient perceptions across the continuum of care.\u201d<\/p>\n In thinking about this definition, it seems that providers tend to emphasize treatment instead of the total patient experience that this definition advocates. \u00a0Provider\u2019s interactions with patients (or prospective patients) before and after treatment are commonly overlooked or undervalued.<\/p>\n It\u2019s often pointed out that customers are doing more and more independent research before engaging any supplier, with over half of the \u201cbuying cycle\u201d being completed before a customer even engages a provider. \u00a0Demographics and the ubiquity of access to information are contributing to acceleration of this trend. \u00a0A 2015\u00a0American Society for Quality\u00a0<\/a>survey found that 83 percent of patients desired improved communications between patients and caregivers as a priority for improved patient experience.<\/p>\n Additionally, we see the millennial generation changing the way healthcare services are consumed by utilizing online resources in far greater numbers.\u00a0 In one survey obtained by FierceHealthCare, <\/a>almost a quarter of millennials won\u2019t ask for referrals at all, instead opting to research it themselves.\u00a0 If millennial interactions with your organization are substandard, how many of those new patients are you going to attract?\u00a0 Or, how many patients will you keep if their interactions with your group are continually marred by multiple phone calls, endless transfers, frequent repeating of the account information and delays in patients receiving valuable information such as lab results?<\/p>\n A good patient experience begins much earlier \u2013before a patient contacts you.<\/p>\n What we\u2019re clearly seeing now is that many customers want to engage with healthcare providers using the same methodologies, tools and media as they do with other enterprises. \u00a0Among other things, their preferences include the ability to\u2026<\/p>\n Unfortunately, we see many healthcare organizations begin the patient experience continuum with a poor interaction.\u00a0 It could be as simple as a patient having a frustrating phone interaction with an interactive voice response system.\u00a0 Or it could be that there is no way to schedule an appointment (outside of calling) with a clinic once the customer has made a decision, even if the customer is already in the clinic\u2019s system.\u00a0 And forget about an interaction with a provider that crosses multiple channels (email, voice, or chat) and keeping that conversation coherent and meaningful to both the provider and the customer.\u00a0 In most cases, that initial poor interaction with a patient sets a negative tone for the process, leaving the provider with the chore of overachieving during follow up interactions \u2013 care and post care. However, healthcare providers have in-office challenges to. Many times, low patient experience also occurs when there are staffing issues<\/a> at the hospital, leading to longer wait times and disjointed quality of care.<\/p>\n There is great progress being made in patient experience, but with much of the effort focused on in-office treatment we\u2019re missing the chance to improve both the bottom line and the overall patient experience by not addressing the initial interactions with patients.<\/p>\n We can do better, and in future blogs I\u2019ll tackle how and where we can improve patient experience and foundational interactions with customers as patients moves across the care continuum.<\/p>\nWhen does patient experience begin and end?<\/h3>\n
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<\/a><\/p>\nWhat does patient experience include?<\/h3>\n
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