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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.

There is a lot of focus on patient satisfaction and experience in healthcare, and for good reason.  Patient Experience is a key contributor to overall hospital quality measures and insurance reimbursements.  In addition, patient satisfaction and experience have been linked time and again to improved patient outcomes.  Although we sometimes view satisfaction and experience as the same thing, they are different.  Both satisfaction and experience are equally important and require ongoing communication passed between caregivers, as well as from caregivers to patient.  A famous physician from Canada, Sir William Osler, once said: “A good physician treats the disease and a great physician treats the patient who has the disease.”⁽¹⁾  The same applies to patient satisfaction and experience.  Focusing on creating a satisfied patient who has a positive experience is the key for driving hospital quality and patient loyalty. 

We all know, providing a safe environment for patients to recover is a fundamental part of offering quality patient care that fosters the best possible outcomes.  With healthcare demands as they are, it can be challenging for organizations to balance complying with regulatory requirements while creating the safest place for patients to heal. Lean staffing ratios combined with regulatory, operational and administrative burdens can lead to increased safety issues.

Despite ongoing government initiatives for policy and regulation, the healthcare industry continues to grow exponentially. Hospitals must be nimble, flexible, and run a tight ship to remain financially solvent. Growth and staffing shortages, combined with what has become a consumer-driven industry, means that healthcare executives are competing for staff, resources, and patients at the same time they are striving to provide quality patient care and work within a smaller budget. In this environment, healthcare organizations must look at their most significant concerns and areas with the most opportunity for improvement in the shortest amount of time. 

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.

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.

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.

“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.”

Rounding 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?

HCAHPS – who knew that six letters could have such an impact on an organization? Low HCAHPS scores can result in a  loss of revenue, an unfavorable reputation in the community, public reporting of unsatisfactory scores, and potential downsizing of programs and/or employees.  Are your patient satisfaction scores lower than you expected?  It’s time to take a look at the consistency of your nurse leader rounding.

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.

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.

The roots of patient rounding can be traced back to a medical center in Birmingham, AL in the late 1980s.² After many years of this concept in practice, studies have shown that it has a direct correlation to improving patient experience. With patient experience scores having an impact on hospital revenue, conducting daily patient rounding is becoming a priority. However, simply completing the round isn’t enough.

Post-discharge calls aid in safe patient transitions, help prevent readmissions, and improve patient satisfaction.¹  In addition, academic studies show that there is a positive correlation between post-discharge calls and HCAHPS scores.² Furthermore, a study from the Beryl Institute shows that advanced analytics can provide robust information allowing hospital systems to take actionable steps for operational improvements, resulting in improved patient outcomes.³ Based on these findings, we know that post-discharge follow-ups are a key part of not just the patient experience model, but the entire continuum of care.

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?

It’s 2018 and technology is everywhere … or is it? Across the country there are hospitals and healthcare organizations that continue to choose to conduct patient rounding armed with paper and pencil.  Is your hospital one of them?

Is 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.

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?

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.

“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. 

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. 

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

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. 

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. 

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.