Question

A CEO of a horizontally integrated healthcare organization suggested that the persons receiving services at their health care facilities are 'actual patients' for less than 10% of the time they are at the facility and for the rest of the time they are general consumers. Because patient satisfaction is one of their strategic goals, the CEO explained that addressing this goal begins before individuals even get to the parking lot. For example: Are phone calls answered in a timely fashion? what is the tone of the respondent on the call? how timely are appointments? is there ease of parking? what are the attitudes of the valets, receptionists' body language; do care providers make eye contact? does the care team appear clean/tidy/properly dressed? do the medical assistants and other staff appear competent? is the actual clinical visit (the 10%) rushed? how are difficult financial issues handled? etc. How can one health care organization address all of these, as well as the other issues, without compromising the quality of care? Pick a specific type of health care organization to use an example. (For example, a clinic that offers lots of different specialty services, hospital, Nursing home or other long-term care facility). Also, think of all the changes that had to be made because of COVID-19 could have impacted patient satisfaction with their quality of care and the services received.

What are your thoughts on this? Why is it important to understand that patient satisfaction is not only what actually happens in the examination room? You can give examples of experiences that help describe or explain your points.

Answer 1

Patient satisfaction is very much important in a Health Care setting. Patient need to be happy with the Healthcare both inside and outside the examination room. It is actually a measure of the quality of the services provided to the patient. Patient satisfaction will affect the retention of the patient and in turn it affect the clinical outcomes.

Patient satisfaction is not only considered about giving proper Services within the examination room. They must get all the needed services in every aspect of the hospital experiences. We can improve the patient satisfaction through different measures including : proper and effective communication, good quality patient care, involving the patient in all parts of the care, participatory decision making, providing comfort measures, improving the employee satisfaction in the hospital.

One of the major aspect of improving the patient satisfaction is by communication. It includes lots of components starting right from making good eye contact, addressing the patient with his or her name, giving simple and clear instructions both written and oral, patient education etc. Active listening is one of the important part of communication. We need to listen to them carefully.

Also we need to take care of the hospital environment. It should be clean and it should provide a comfortable atmosphere to the client. Hospital sanitary measures will act a major role in patient satisfaction.

Next aspect is about the frequent evaluation and feedback Systems on patient satisfaction. Surveys need to be conducted on a periodical basis and necessary changes need to be taken based on this. Whenever the hospital is introducing a new technique or whenever there is a major change in routine that is to be assessed or evaluated using surveys . We need to know about the patient's perception on these changes.

The covid-19 situation has brought some drastic changes in the hospitals and other health care settings. There is some changes in the protocols and also on the routine of hospitals. There is a ban on certain elective surgery and there is some reduction of hospital admissions. Sanitary measures are to be undertaken strictly and frequently. There are some screening centres established and every patient and relatives are screened before entering into the hospital and they need to undergo tests and guidance to proceed to the next station. All this may cause some inconveniences or difficulties to the patient sometimes. So all these need to be explained thoroughly in gentle manner. Also there should be no compromise on covid-19 protocol. Hospitals and other Health Care settings need to provide a healthy and safe environment to the patient and family. There is patient isolation, and there are lot of problems associated with this like anxiety, lack of communication with the family etc. These things need to be taken into consideration and proper measures need to be taken to improve the patient satisfaction during covid-19 pandemic.

Providing individualized care and personalized experiences will be having a major impact on maintaining patient satisfaction. Every level of the staff need to behave with courtesy and respect. There Should be immediate action on patient's needs and concerns. Patient should not develop frustration out of unmet needs or concerns. All employees at every level should demonstrate a caring behaviour to the patient including the security staff, receptinists, attenders, professional and non professional staff etc.