In this FQHC Patient Experience Case Study, we’ll take a look at how some innovative FQHCs are utilizing the Feedtrail XM Platform to maximize their patient outcomes and drive their unique business outcomes.

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The Benefits of Direct Patient Communication for FQHCs

Northeast Valley Health Corporation (NEVHC) is an FQHC with more than a dozen locations in the Los Angeles area. The COVID-19 pandemic hit all healthcare organizations hard, and community health centers such as NEVHC, which depend on grants and federal funding, were affected the most. With 17 locations to manage and align, NEVHC faced the additional burden of finding new ways of communicating with their decentralized and diverse patient population without losing effectiveness. Due to the pandemic restrictions, the usual methods of communication and experience management were no longer working as well as they had.

Read the full case study here.

NEVHC’s pediatric department experienced these issues most acutely. Over the course of 20 days, NEVHC used Feedtrail to send out the ‘Pediatric Text Messaging Project’ – a personalized, direct text message to their pediatric patients (ages 0-17) and their families. This project served dual purposes: first, it allowed NEVHC to open direct lines of communication with a specific, vulnerable patient population; second, the project drove the scheduling of more in-office appointments. 

NEVHC successfully achieved both goals. Not only were pediatric patients and their families made aware that in-person appointments were safe and available, many families took the next step and actually scheduled appointments. The first week resulted in the scheduling of 22 new in-office pediatric appointments — appointments that, without the Pediatric Text Messaging Project, would otherwise have never happened.

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The Benefits of Using XM to Make Informed Business Decisions

Whitman-Walker Health, located in the Washington DC area, is an FQHC that focuses on caring for the LGBTQ+ community. Whitman-Walker wanted to understand how their patient populations would respond to the transition to telehealth. 

As an organization, Whitman-Walker wanted to find a way to further understand patient preferences and utilize them to inform the business decisions around care restructuring. Whitman-Walker used Feedtrail to ask their patients to specify for which types of procedures they were willing to have in-person appointments, and which visits they’d prefer to handle via telehealth.  

Whitman-Walker found that their patient population preferred in-person to telehealth by a 55/45% margin, and that patients were willing to come in to have blood drawn and receive testing, procedures that were priorities for 38% of their customers, whereas other procedures such as dental appointments were a priority for less than 10%. Whitman-Walker was able to make informed decisions around balancing in-person and telehealth visits and offerings, maximizing their resources. 

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The Benefits of Real-Time Patient Feedback for FQHCs

For over thirty years, CareSouth Carolina has been one of the leading FQHCs in the state of South Carolina. CareSouth’s mission is to provide its patient population with healing, caring relationships and experiences – regardless of their individual, personal circumstances. 

For CareSouth, the biggest patient experience challenge they faced was trying to meet The Joint Commission standard of collecting 10 or more feedbacks per provider per month. Ensuring proper feedback collection while attempting to personalize each patient engagement was always a challenge and was extremely time-consuming for their staff. So CareSouth deployed Feedtrail across six of their locations, streamlining their collection of patient feedback data by handing tablets loaded with a survey to patients checking out. This allowed them to not only satisfy their Joint Commission requirements but also drive up their patient engagement and provided them with more actionable feedback than ever before. 

Ultimately, CareSouth Carolina decided to expand their new patient experience strategy by rolling out the Feedtrail solution across all 10 of their outpatient locations and their 6 pharmacy locations. As a result, they are now averaging 700 unique patient feedbacks per month and the organization has retained over $300,000 in revenue from their more streamlined and efficient patient experience process.

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NEVHC, CareSouth, and Whitman-Walker are just a few examples of the patient experience strategies that are being deployed by FQHCs across the country to meet their unique business needs while driving better patient outcomes. Schedule a Feedtrail demo today to learn more about how we can help your organization thrive!

 “Experience management isn’t just about happier patients and staff. It’s about managing both patient and employee experiences in thoughtful, impactful ways. Deliberate, effective experience management can truly make all the difference for FQHCs and community or rural health centers.”

 

 

 

RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, N.C. November 11, 2020. Feedtrail’s Reimagining Healthcare series continues with a new webinar. Healthcare leaders from Relatient and ClarusCare joined Feedtrail’s CEO Paul Jaglowski to discuss the latest cutting-edge technology that can transform your practice’s patient experience by automating key communication touchpoints.

•  How modern practices get feedback from their patients
•  How to address patient concerns in real-time
•  What patients are really looking for in automated reminders

The panelists for this webinar included: Paul Jaglowski, Co-Founder and CEO of Feedtrail; Dick Nord, CEO of ClarusCare; and Trevor Brown, VP of Business Development at Relatient. The webinar was hosted by Dreu Adams of Graham Healthcare Group. 

The discussion focused on how innovative organizations across all industries – not just healthcare – have begun automating and personalizing many of their points of communication with their customers and their employees, and how this is helping to build their customer loyalty and bring in referrals. 

•  How staff happiness translates to patient satisfaction
•  The costs and benefits of call management automation

Your patients are your customers. And they have come to expect the same level of automation and personal touch from their healthcare providers that they receive from other vendors. More and more practices and care providers are using technology to their advantage to make this happen. There’s no reason your practice can’t be doing the same thing to boost patient satisfaction and drive retention throughout the changing tides of healthcare. 

To watch the entire webinar, please click here.

 

About the Participants

About Feedtrail: Feedtrail’s experience management platform automates the collection and analysis of in-the-moment feedback data and facilitates fast, efficient service recovery, helping healthcare organizations enhance patient care, improve employee retention, increase revenue, and prevent patient churn.

About Relatient: Relatient’s patient engagement platform integrates with over 85 practice management systems and electronic health databases to drive operational efficiency, appointments and reviews, reduce no-shows, speed patient payments and improve patient satisfaction, all while supporting health and care quality initiatives.

About ClarusCare: ClarusCare’s call management platform that replaces traditional medical answering services. Adopted by thousands of providers across the country, Founded in 2014, ClarusCare provides real-time on-call scheduling, error-free call routing, reliable documentation, while reducing costs.  

RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, N.C.  July 13, 2020.  As part one of our Reimagining Healthcare series, our recent webinar discussed how getting better data about your clinician and patient experience and utilizing that data in the right way can help you improve both your organization’s culture and your patient outcomes — even during a pandemic. The webinar panelists Paul Jaglowski, Co-Founder and CEO of Feedtrail, Dr. William Maples, President and CEO of the Institute for Healthcare Excellence (IHE) and, Dr. West Paul, Chief Clinical Officer at New Hanover Regional Medical Center were moderated by Dr. Jenn Clark, IHE faculty, former CQO at Hillcrest Healthcare System.

• • What getting “better” data really means (it’s not about getting more data)
  • Why you can’t simply ask your patients about their experience — your clinicians matter, too
  • Why better data is key to implementing culture-changing solutions
  • The economic impact of effectively improving your culture

Dr. Clark kicked off the conversation by explaining the status quo in the field of healthcare experience culture, and the impact being felt across the industry from the COVID-19 pandemic. Dr. Clark pointed out that clinician burnout wasn’t a new concern created by the pandemic; burnout has been a problem for decades because clinician engagement data hasn’t usually been gathered, and when it has, it hasn’t been collected as part of a holistic approach designed to produce better patient outcomes. While the COVID-19 pandemic didn’t create these issues, it has brought them into the light in a way they hadn’t previously been. Feedtrail and IHE want to address these issues through proactively gathering better data and implementing tailored, targeted strategies, so that the healthcare conversation can move from being “around burnout to one around resiliency, and ultimately, thriving.” Here are the challenges  with the status quo discussed by the panelist:

1. • Standardized measurement (surveying) is ineffective for understanding clinician needs and keeping them engaged
   • Years of unactionable data have led to distrust from clinicians, and ultimately burnout 
   • Siloed patient and clinician experience data doesn’t lead to lasting results 

Paul Jaglowski then went on to elaborate on the status quo and share key takeaways and best practices the Feedtrail team has experienced having worked with over 50 health systems, across nearly 3,000 individual hospitals and clinics. He shared: “In order for healthcare organizations to thrive, both from a patient and clinician satisfaction standpoint, it’s paramount that they prioritize building a culture driven by both patient and clinician engagement because one simply will not thrive without the other.”Here are some of the best practices:

1. • More data is distracting, good data is game-changing 
   • Personalized, relevant engagement is critical for informing solutions that last
   • Real-time feedback is necessary to perform service recovery and address issues
   • Context is key — combining patient feedback with clinician feedback allows you to quickly see how improving your clinician experience affects your patient experience and outcomes for the better.

Dr. Maples then shared his experience on the value of pairing actionable data with personalized solutions to drive sustainable results.

• • Patients want to be heard
  • Clinicians also want to be heard, to be validated, to have input on processes and policies
  • Culture is linked to efficiency, safety, clinical outcomes, and experience
  • Strong teamwork improves everything — not just HCAHPS, but clinical outcomes

Finally, Dr. Paul shared his experiences from 15 years in the field of Healthcare Quality and Clinical leadership…

• • Making culture changes must start with good, actionable data — otherwise, you’ll lose credibility with your clinicians
  • The bottom-line, financial case for changing your culture is easy to make — value-based purchasing means millions and millions of dollars for your organization

Cultural change doesn’t happen overnight. It is hard. And you have to be on top of these changes every day to make sure things are headed in the right direction. The only way to do that is to gather good data on your patient and clinician experiences and use that data to make good strategic decisions. You must do that, and you must keep your eye on building teamwork and on recognizing your staff when they do good work and do it well. If you can do that, you’ll see your clinicians become happier and your staff turnover rate drops. Not only that, but you’ll also see your HCAHPS go up, but you’ll also enhance your financial position, and your patient outcomes will improve.

To watch the entire webinar, please click here.

 

About IHE

The Institute for Healthcare Excellence partners with healthcare organizations to nurture the relational skills necessary to create a culture that embraces trust, respect, compassion, and teamwork – creating an environment where quality, safety, and efficiency can flourish. Through this work, physicians, nurses, and the caregiver team reconnect to purpose and restore joy to the practice of medicine. The result of the culture-transformation work is a restoration of humanity to medicine. To learn more visit www.healthcareexcellence.org

About Feedtrail

Feedtrail provides the technology, advanced analytics and prescriptive insights needed to deliver exceptional, human-centered experiences in the service of better health outcomes for patients, providers, payers, and their respective communities. Feedtrail is based in Raleigh, NC, with offices in Los Angeles, CA, and Helsinki, Finland, and serves more than 50+ health systems across 4,000 different sites in 14 different countries. To schedule a demo or learn more email us at us@feedtrail.com

RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, N.C.  May 20, 2020 Feedtrail and HOLLIBLU release results from the second nationwide survey highlighting the importance of enhancing nurse well-being amid COVID-19 and beyond. The increasing prevalence of nurse burnout has led to skyrocketing rates of attrition and has recently worsened due to the COVID-19 crisis. As a result, mental health and the well-being of nurses has become a critical concern. That’s why nurse community and technology app, HOLLIBLU, in partnership with real-time patient and clinician experience platform provider, Feedtrail, launched a 2nd nationwide “pulse” survey as part of #NursesWeek2020. In the first 24 hours alone, we received more than 1,000 responses from nurses across all 50 states! Our analysis of the survey results provides healthcare systems with the actionable insights they need to address these concerns and support patient care professionals in the wake of COVID-19 and beyond. Key findings of the second survey were staggering:

• 61% reported still wanting to leave the industry all together as a result of their experiences during the COVID-19 crisis
• 46% of respondents said they ARE likely to leave their current position or specialty
• 50% of respondents reported experiencing high levels of anxiety and emotional stress
• According to these nurses, this significantly manifests into secondary symptoms such as inability to concentrate and feeling distracted

100% of healthcare HR leaders agree that improving employee engagement in order to increase patient satisfaction is a TOP PRIORITY. If you want your organization to deliver high-quality care post COVID-19, you must keep both nurses AND clinicians engaged and feeling supported. In order to do so, organizations have to be mindful of what they actually need; healthcare leaders must understand the pulse of their healthcare employees so they can be prepared to keep caregivers satisfied and supported to ensure they are delivering the highest quality care possible. For more insights and results related to clinician support and engagement, see infographic:

 

About HOLLIBLU As a state-of-the-art nurse matching and recruitment technology, we help nurses to connect with professional opportunities, organize their professional life, restore their passion for nursing and empower them to thrive. We believe in a world where empowered nurses will transform the industry in which they serve. About Feedtrail Feedtrail helps healthcare organizations instantly measure the pulse of patients and employees. Our first of its kind, real-time patient and clinician experience platform automates the collection and analysis of data to surface actionable insights and identify opportunities for improving the patient-and-clinician experience. We believe employee-and-patient satisfaction leads to better outcomes for patients, providers, and the entire healthcare ecosystem. Feedtrail is based in Raleigh, NC, with offices in Los Angeles, CA, and Helsinki, Finland, and serves more than 50+ health systems across 4,000 different sites in 14 different countries. To schedule a demo or learn more email us at us@feedtrail.com.  

RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, N.C. April 13, 2020 Feedtrail, real-time patient and employee feedback platform provider, in partnership with HOLLIBLU, an exclusive community and technology for nurses, announces the results of a new nationwide survey of nurses, giving voice to the emotional, physical, and mental toll of the COVID-19 crisis, and a first glimpse into the impact on patient care in its wake. According to survey data, the U.S. may be facing a mass exodus of nursing professionals, leading to an unprecedented shortage of nurses in the aftermath of the COVID-19 crisis. Of the 1,300 nurses surveyed, three out five are likely to leave their position or specialty as a result of their experience with the COVID-19 pandemic. Further data analysis shows that 67 percent of respondents will either leave their current facility or quit the industry altogether, and 3 percent of these nurses have already resigned.

“Nursing professionals nationwide were already experiencing burnout and subsequent turnover,” said HOLLIBLU founder, Cara Lunsford, a former nurse for child cancer patients. “The COVID-19 pandemic is rapidly accelerating turnover among nurses, unlike anything we’ve ever seen. Now more than ever, they need support from their management to help limit the mental, emotional, and physical toll of supporting COVID-19. ”

The financial implications are staggering. Further data analysis estimates the cost of a mass exodus of nurses in the wake of COVID-19 at $137B. The data also provides clear insights for healthcare organizations seeking to mitigate the risk of high rates of turnover among nurses. “These findings serve as a reminder about the necessity of giving voice to health professionals on the front lines of patient care, not only during this crisis, but also year round,” said Paul Jaglowski, co-founder and CEO, Feedtrail. “Our mission at Feedtrail, from day one, has been to help healthcare organizations tap into the patient-and-employee experience, in real-time, to actively address potential near-term and longer-term issues, such as large-scale nurse turnover.” Actively engaging the nursing community is just the beginning. Feedtrail wants to help organizations give voice to their community of health practitioners on the frontlines of this global pandemic. If you belong to a network of Physicians, PA’s, Respiratory Therapists, etc. please contact us at US@Feedtrail.com to set up a secure, anonymous survey that can be live in a matter of hours. Together, we can #FlattentheCurve. For more insights and data, view the infographic:

 

About HOLLIBLU As a state-of-the-art nurse matching and recruitment technology, we help nurses to connect with professional opportunities, organize their professional life, restore their passion for nursing and empower them to thrive. We believe in a world where empowered nurses will transform the industry in which they serve. About Feedtrail Feedtrail helps healthcare organizations instantly measure the pulse of patients and employees. Our first-of-its kind, real-time patient-and-employee feedback platform automates the collection and analysis of data to surface actionable insights and identify opportunities for improving the patient-and-employee experience. We believe employee-and-patient satisfaction leads to better outcomes for patients, providers, and the entire healthcare ecosystem. Feedtrail is based in Raleigh, NC, with offices in Los Angeles, CA, and Helsinki, Finland, and serves more than 50+ health systems across 4,000 different sites in 14 different countries.To schedule a demo or learn more, visit us online at https://feedtrail.com or email us at us@feedtrail.com.

A recent study asked nearly 2,000 hospital patients to offer information about their experiences. One of the things that were measured was the Net Promoter Score (NPS), while another was the current emotional state of the patient. It might seem strange to think that a patient’s emotional state has an effect on their hospital’s NPS, but it turns out they’re definitely correlated.

When looking at the information provided by these hospital patients, 46% were promoters and 30% were detractors, which leads to an average NPS score of 16. When presented with an NPS question (“On a scale from 0-10, how likely are you to recommend Hospital X to friends and family?”) promoters are those patients who respond with a 9 or a 10. Detractors are those who choose a score between 0 and 6 and who are least likely to bring in additional patients. (Those who choose 7 or 8 are known as Passives.)

 

How Emotions and Gender Effect Net Promoter Score

In this survey, a number of interesting things came out. First, promoters were most likely to mark themselves as “relieved” when speaking about their most recent visit to the hospital. On top of that, the highest NPS scores came from patients who felt confident after leaving the hospital. Those who felt disappointed were the most likely to offer a lower NPS score.

When looking at the information by age group, there were other interesting things that could be gleaned from the data. It turns out that those who are 18 to 24 years of age are least likely to feel confident, while 55 to 64-year-old patients were the most likely to feel confident. Those over 64 were the least likely to be disappointed after a hospital visit while those between 55 and 64 were most likely to be disappointed when all was said and done.

 

Ways to Create a More Confident Patient Base

When patients are confident in you and your services, that can affect their recovery, mindset — and your NPS scores. The good news is that there are numerous ways to gain the confidence of these patients and then keep it that way. While data like quality rankings matter, so do other things that aren’t as easily analyzed. Below are a few ways to offer confidence to your patients.

 

Use a Single Branded Voice

People are more likely to trust a person than they are to trust a brand, even if that brand has an amazing marketing message. However, your brand is more than just what you put in ads and brochures. It also relates to how you feel, look, sound, and act. Everything done by anyone in your hospital is a part of your brand, including interaction with patients.

That means that anyone who is in your office or hospital should be trained to offer assistance and build relationships in a way that is consistent for your brand. That doesn’t mean each person has to read from a script, it just means having the same attitude and using the same language is important.

 

Provide Information Patients Need

In the modern world, many patients will take to a search engine before they ever make a doctor’s appointment. It’s easy to find information about medications, treatments, costs, and illnesses by searching Google. However, patients also trust medical professionals so it might be well worth it to provide this type of information on your own website.

Be upfront and offer all the information a patient could need. You can use an online presence to offer reliable and timely communication to patients and potential patients. When you offer up-to-date and accurate information, you can gain a patient’s trust before they ever come through your doors.

 

Address Concerns That Patients May Have

Heading to the doctor’s office for an appointment or going to a hospital can be scary and stressful for many people. Patients often stress about the possibility of bad news, of being treated poorly, or of other adverse things occurring. Once these concerns take root, it can be hard to get rid of them. Even a routine procedure can become a source of stress.

When marketing yourself, you can offer information to help reduce anxiety and fear. Your patients will begin to see your healthcare facility as a place that is caring, safe, and dependable when needed. Alleviating common fears can have a huge effect on the confidence of your patients and their trust in you.

 

Build a Seamless Care Experience

Your organization shouldn’t be a place where it takes forever for patients to understand how things work or where to access the information they need. Patients want to find care, and they want you to make it easy for them to do so. There are lots of steps in the process but communicating well is the best place to start. Being proactive and providing direction is a necessity.

When you have easy-to-use resources and tools available to show the patient where to go next, it is more likely they will stick around and seek care from you again and again. Being informative and transparent is a big part of that. Patients who know they are coming to the right office to see the right people for the right care are going to be confident from the very beginning.

 

Use a Compelling Story to Build Your Reputation

When it comes to healthcare organizations, patients are going to consider the ratings and reviews they see online, the reputation you have in a community, and what friends and family members are saying about you. Word-of-mouth is a crucial aspect for gaining patients in a healthcare setting. If you have a consistent story and an authentic message, your organization and reputation will both benefit.

One of the best ways to gain a positive reputation is through the image of your brand and personal recommendations. Confident patients who trust you are more likely to give you a higher NPS score. Putting all these things together can offer a great deal of success for your healthcare organization no matter your location, care setting, or history.