Clarifire Conversations

January 05, 2020

Patient Experience in 2019 - What to Expect Next

It is hard to believe 2019 is over.  The year rocketed by as we watched healthcare disruption manifest in numerous ways.  We saw large-scale changes, such as CVS and Aetna team up, Uber expand their ridesharing in the healthcare industry, and Amazon join forces with J.P. Morgan and Berkshire Hathaway to slash healthcare prices for their 1.1 million employees.  We also saw changes on a smaller scale that packed a punch.  Take patient experience HCAHPS surveys for an example.  Most know the impact of these surveys can be the difference between a financial loss or gain.  Therefore, when Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) removed pain management questions from the HCHAPS survey in 2019, the industry took notice.

Providing a good patient experience as part of quality care is not new, and has always been important. The implementation of the HCAHPS survey only increased the importance and made it top-of-mind for healthcare leaders. CMS and the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) collaborated to develop the HCAHPS survey, implementing it in 2006.  It was the first national survey to provide public data related to the patient’s perspective of care while in the hospital. Sharing the data publically incentivizes hospitals to improve quality to compete with other hospitals, and provides consumers with side-by-side quality ratings to consider when choosing their provider.  The standardized questions on the survey became an integral piece of the quality puzzle, with measures directly tied to Medicare reimbursements and heavy financial penalties for sub-par quality.

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May 16, 2019

5 Hot Topics from the 2019 Patient Experience Symposium

Hospitals want to provide a great patient experience, but at times it can be a challenge. The hot topics and emerging trends covered at this year’s Patient Experience Symposium appropriately pointed out that Patient Experience is more than one single thing done by a single person.  Instead, Patient Experience must be a mission, one that is owned by every team member within the organization.  Clarifire was there to discuss the issues and collaborate with providers on how to improve the patient experience.  In case you couldn’t be there, here’s our key takeaways from the conference.

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April 21, 2019

Celebrating Those Who Make Patient Experience a Success

In 2014, The Beryl Institute introduced ‘Patient Experience Week’ as a time to recognize healthcare staff that have an impact on patient’s experiences each day.   As the industry has moved from volume based to value-based care, consumerism has made patient experience even more critical to organizations.  Proving to be an important factor for improving patient safety and clinical outcomes while at the same time eliciting the highest reimbursements possible, Patient Experience is top of mind for most healthcare organization leaders.

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March 20, 2019

3 Tips to Improve Patient Experience Today

Has your team struggled with improving the patient experience at your hospital?  Are you overwhelmed by the possible strategies to employ in order to improve your quality and HCAHPS scores?  Many organizations labor over which strategies or data is the most important to analyze.  Don’t get caught up in analysis paralysis!  With so many options available, here are 3 things that you can do to continue improving your patient experience.

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February 28, 2019

Rounding on Patients - How Do You Make Them Feel?

“People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” – Maya Angelou

Let’s pretend we’re having a conversation, and you can see that I’m not giving you my full attention.  Maybe I’m looking across the room, or I’m distracted by my cell phone or watch.  I look up and say, “Go ahead and talk. I can listen while I do this.”

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December 20, 2018

Is Your Rounding Solution Letting You Down?

hRounding has proven to be an effective practice in determining the level of patient satisfaction and improving the overall patient experience.  Many organizations will purchase a rounding solution to support and analyze rounding activities. Did your organization make the investment, but you haven’t seen an increase in HCAHPS scores?  Were you able to sustain the scores from previous years?  If you answered no to those questions, does that mean you bought the wrong solution?

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November 16, 2018

Two Things to Increase Low Patient Experience Scores

Improving Patient Experience remains top of mind for most healthcare executives, but strategies and best practices are still being discovered and vary between organizations.  Two evidence based strategies often used to increase low patient experience scores are Hourly Rounding and Bedside Shift Reports.

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October 04, 2018

How to Get the "Yes" Response from Patients on OAS CAHPS

Despite the fact that OAS CAHPS are still voluntary, their eventual mandate could be right around the corner.  To achieve top scores, it’s not as straight forward as just focusing on clinical outcomes.  When patients are looking at where to have a procedure, they are looking beyond just competency.

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August 06, 2018

How Do You Create a Positive Pediatric Patient Experience?

One size does not fit all.  Ensuring a positive experience for children and their parents/guardians is essential for strategically building patient trust.  Today, building that trust is also financially imperative. How do parents and guardians view their child’s care?

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June 22, 2018

How Coaching and Technology Create Rounding Success

ogo-highIs your team afraid to log not met domains and coaching notes? Do they often communicate that they don’t want to ‘tattle’? OR, are they completely silent during team meetings? It’s an uncomfortable discussion, but top box HCAHPS are dependent on seeing and understanding the full picture of your patient’s experience.

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April 20, 2018

5 Ways to Celebrate Patient Experience Week

Patient Experience Week is next week. Have you thought about the meaning and purpose behind it? Or better yet—how you’re going to celebrate?

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March 23, 2018

Using the right rounding software makes your work easier—here’s how

As a Patient Experience Manager, CNO, or Nurse Executive, you understand the importance and effectiveness of Nurse Leader Rounding. Are you having trouble convincing your teams to get on board with the idea? Maybe they’re not buying into it because they think they won’t have time to learn something new. Maybe you’ve used a company in the past and got burned—but switching to a technology that actually works is easier than you think. Here are some things you can say to help convince your team to trust the process.

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January 11, 2018

Pain Management: It's All About Communication

“Every day in the U.S., more than 650,000 opioid prescriptions are dispensed, and 3,900 people start using prescription opioids for a non-medical purpose. Seventy-eight people die from an opioid-related overdose daily.”1 This creates a struggle for hospitals between patient satisfaction and realistic expectations of pain levels. 

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December 29, 2017

The Transition of Care: Gain Control and Fill the Gaps

The healthcare industry is increasing their focus on communication and collaboration across the entire care continuum.  The “transition of care” movement aims to share timely, accurate, and sufficient information across providers such as Hospitals, Ambulatory Surgery Centers, Rehabilitation Centers, Urgent Care Facilities, and more. 

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December 12, 2017

3 Reasons Why 360-Degree Patient Engagement Improves HCAHPS

Professionals in the healthcare field know a better patient experience directly translates to increased patient satisfaction scores and positive impact to hospital reimbursements.

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October 18, 2017

Technology: The Problem and the Solution for Exceeding Patient Expectations

When a patient walks through the doors of your hospital, they already have a preconceived notion of the experience they will receive during their stay. The expectations of today’s consumer are much different than those from five years ago and it’s safe to assume they will be even more different five years from now. 

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August 17, 2017

Smarter Technology Helps Hospitals Target What Patients Care About Most

Healthcare professionals understand how important it is that their patients have a good experience and are treated well during their stay, on top of the expectation of quality clinical care. Now more than ever, emphasis on the experience is critical as HCAHPS scores are directly linked to reimbursement initiatives through the Center of Medicaid and Medicare Services. 

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August 03, 2017

The 3 Most Common Pitfalls to Nurse Leader Rounding

Hospital systems are focusing now more than ever on improving the experiences of patients and their families, as their “inpatient” providers are held accountable to value based service models.

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July 19, 2017

4 Ways Purposeful Rounding Increases Patient Experience Scores

It’s no secret that structured rounding improves patient communications and case management outcomes. But, according to a study conducted by Stanford Health Care, purposeful rounding has also increased patient satisfaction by an average of 12% in some hospitals.

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December 28, 2016

4 Things to Avoid When Selecting a Rounding Solution

The Healthcare industry has been advancing quickly into the digital age. Having a mobile strategy is just one part of it.  With the introduction of electronic medical record systems and the ongoing integration of technology into the continuum of care, there has been an explosion of software and hardware products and solutions. 

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August 31, 2016

CMS Hospital Quality Star Ratings Don’t Shine

The recent release of hospital ratings by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has generated a less than positive buzz amongst hospital administrators. 

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August 02, 2016

Innovating the Patient Experience

Understanding how to innovate the patient experience is no longer analogous to operating in the dark.  Originating out of Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HCAHPS) scoring process back in 2002, patient experience has evolved along with legislation through the Hospital Compare web portal introduced in 2008, onto becoming a major component of Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement in 2012. 

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