When hearing industry buzzwords like “customer experience” and “user experience,” these concepts once associated with luxury have become the norm. The healthcare sector has discovered the mutual benefits of patient experience, prompting a shift to a more patient-centered approach. Encouraging patient engagement through digital self-service tools and patient portals fosters better care outcomes, increasing patient satisfaction and elevating provider performance. This article explains “What is patient experience?”
Defining Patient Experience: More Than Just Satisfaction
What is patient experience? Patient experience definitions can vary, but to put it simply, it consists of all those “touchpoints” and interactions that influence patient sentiment of the provider. Other key players in patient experience are family members, healthcare professionals, processes, and technology.
Patient satisfaction is not synonymous with patient experience. Unlike patient satisfaction, which hinges on subjective opinions, patient experience in healthcare is rooted in care delivery that is consistent, compassionate, and efficient.
Key Components of Patient Experience
The question of how to improve patient experience naturally follows the question of, “Why is patient experience important?” Studying patient experience in hospitals and other settings reveal which factors have the most impact. By looking into each component of the current state of patient experience, healthcare leaders can pinpoint what is currently working well and what needs improvement.
Timely Access to Care
Time efficiency is a determining factor in patient experience quality. Patients are consumers, and the services they receive in other areas of their daily lives influence an anticipation of convenience from service providers in general, healthcare included.
Healthcare businesses that are proactive to reduce paperwork and minimize wait times in consideration for patient convenience will stand out among other providers. For example, providing a patient portal that is optimized for the digital patient experience can activate self-service that promotes time efficiency. For example, a patient logging onto the portal to complete paperwork, schedule follow-ups, review lab reports, send messages to physicians can reduce time in the office and time on a phone call, respectively.
Effective Communication and Personal Interactions
Communication is an art, and when healthcare providers slack on communication quality, patients will take notice. Communication breakdowns and inconsistencies can be perceived as a lack of competence and professionalism in addition to carelessness.
Instilling communication best practices at every level of clinical operations creates a clinical environment of efficiency, attentiveness, and reliability that positively impacts the overall healthcare patient experience. This includes having the patient feel heard in office visits, and effective collaboration of healthcare professionals both internally and externally.
Optimized Tools
Technology is what formed consumer expectations for more convenience, and it is also what continues to deliver convenience. Examples of leveraging technology to support patient experience quality are:
- Automated reminders: Because automated phone calls, text messaging and emails have become so common, many patients have come to rely on them. Reminders can help reduce appointment no-shows and increase task completion rates.
- Automatic surveys: Asking to complete a survey or leave a review immediately after an appointment helps build your reputation, gathers actionable feedback, helps minimize the effects of poor experience by providing feedback to address, and tells patients that their voice matters.
- Self-service tools: Amenities such as patient portals and check-in kiosks are examples of how to simultaneously promote more convenience and efficiency.
- Waiting room charging stations: Whether it’s wrapping up registration steps or scrolling to pass the time, providing the means to charge devices ads that extra touch of hospitality in a clinic.
Holistic Approach to Care
For care models, what is patient experience compatible with? Patient-centered care focuses on the “whole patient.” Rather than maintain a separation of medical care from a patient’s personal life, providers can address more factors that impact care outcomes. For example, social determinants of health (SDOH) can be gathered during consultations, and even more so with virtual visits where the provider can make observations about the patient’s home environment.
A clinical environment where providers are entrusted with a patient’s personal life fosters a partnership of working together to problem solve through what prevents a patient from staying on track with their health goals. Such a partnership not only cultivates loyalty to a provider but also helps medical practices meet performance targets.
Benefits of Patient Experience
What are patient experience benefits? As a globally recognized aspect of healthcare quality essential for advancing patient-centered care, care quality is elevated through:
- Improved adherence to treatment plans and medication regimens.
- Faster recovery times and reduced complications.
- Prevention of medical errors through strong patient-provider relationships.
- Enhanced patient safety.
- Reduced unnecessary utilization of tests, procedures, or emergency department visits.
- Reduced patient attrition resulting from disengagement.
Measuring and Improving Patient Experience
What is patient experience in terms of key performance indicators (KPIs)? Measuring patient experience quality helps healthcare leaders see what’s working and what still needs to improve. The CAHPS (Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems) survey is one of the tools that offer valuable insights. Here are the steps for using this tool effectively:
- Conduct CAHPS surveys: Canvass your patient base to gather tangible data on the current state of the patient experience.
- Combine with other metrics: Form a more complete analysis by fitting together quality metrics from other sources.
- Base improvement efforts upon feedback: Actively seek and address patient feedback. Continuously refine processes these learnings to drive positive change and deliver patient-centered care.
- Foster an open communication culture: Encourage an environment where patients feel comfortable sharing their experiences and concerns.
By understanding what cultivates patient experience in healthcare and its significance, you can take meaningful steps to extract more of its benefits. Measuring and actively improving patient experience keeps care teams on track with what is working and provides more opportunities to further enhance performance.
Summary: What is Patient Experience?
What is patient experience and what is its significance? Patient experience and patient-centered care have been adopted on a global scale. This phenomenon consists of the many “touchpoints” and interactions that influence a patient’s sentiment of the provider. Other than the patient themselves, other players in patient experience are family members, providers, processes, and technology.
Upholding patient experience quality is mutually beneficial for providers and their patients. It promotes a partnership where the patient and the provider work together toward health goals and optimal outcomes. This also helps restore faith in the healthcare system in general. Patients finally feel like their needs are being met and providers unlock the benefits of elevated performance.
To maximize the benefits of patient experience quality, healthcare leaders must see how operations measure up in all those areas that contribute to patient-centered care. Such areas include time efficiency, communication, technology, and adopting a holistic care model. Regular measuring of patient experience performance allows care teams to continue with what’s working and seize opportunities to improve performance.
Enhance Care Quality with a Website Built for the Patient Experience
As a digital front door, the healthcare business website is a central hub for patient engagement. There they can securely and safely access credible information, obtain contact information, find access points to tools like the patient portal and online bill pay. iHealthSpot not only optimizes your website for the patient experience, but also enhances it through search engine optimization (SEO) to attract more new patients. Our teams can also help integrate your EHR with automated survey and online reviews requests. To learn more about how we can work together to best leverage technology for the patient experience, contact us today.
