After patients walk through the doors of your facility, they see a provider (or sometimes more than one), get the care they need, and, more often than not, they’re sent on their way. The interaction may feel complete. But sometime after leaving the four walls of a hospital or clinic, individuals receive patient experience surveys asking how they rate their interactions. And the truth is that many of these listening tools are sent too late and lack supportive elements to improve engagement.  

So how do organizations do a better job of engaging patients away from the clinical setting?  

Providers must fill in gaps that traditional post-discharge protocols miss. This includes sending a survey soon after patients leave, and asking questions relevant to your service, your initiatives, and the patient — considering demographics and personalized journeys in the process. But before diving too deep into patient engagement strategies that can help with this goal, it’s essential to understand the complexity of patients’ care journeys.

Understanding Experience Through a Healthcare Engagement Framework

Though care journeys aren’t always linear, there are several touchpoints patients commonly witness across interactions with providers. And within these distinct steps exist opportunities to engage individuals and better support outstanding patient experiences. Here are some common care journey encounters:

To effectively reach and support patients post-visit and beyond, Feedtrail recommends a proven rubric of patient engagement strategies, including: 

1. Incentivizing comprehensive post–visit patient experience surveys

These are the bread and butter of post-discharge patient engagement strategies. You want to ask questions that get to the heart of an encounter and glean actionable information so you can know exactly what you’re doing well and how you can improve. While short and sweet patient experience surveys generally generate better response rates, occasionally you’ll want to find out more after people leave the four walls of your hospital or clinic. That’s where incentives can play a key role. For example, one organization we work with sends a long, comprehensive survey to patients every other year. To boost participation, it decided to offer patients a chance to win a $100 gift card — subsequently increasing response rates by 20%. Whether you use short, initiative-specific surveys or gather more comprehensive information after individuals exit your facility, Feedtrail’s flexible survey tools help you uncover powerful insights to inform impactful changes. 

2. Using post–appointment patient engagement technology for follow-up

The patient experience doesn’t end at the exit sign. Thus, whether making sure individuals take medication as prescribed or resolving billing issues, you want to continue to support people after they leave your facility. Your patients’ outcomes could depend on it. For example, not adhering to treatment plans has been tied to worsening disease control, increased expenditures, more hospitalizations, and other negative results. Extending your patient engagement strategies beyond surveys to simplify care journeys fosters better loyalty and strengthens patient-provider connections. One Feedtrail client realized their patients often had difficulty paying their bills — not because of financial issues, but because they didn’t understand their bills or how to navigate payment processes. The hospital began sending billing surveys 60 days post-visit to see if patients understood their invoices, to assess whether they thought charges were accurate, and to share how to get assistance from the billing department if needed. In the first year after implementing this survey, the organization resolved over 150 issues that would have prevented or delayed payments. 

3. Sending messages to help patients navigate next steps

Often, a single encounter doesn’t reflect the entirety of a healthcare engagement. For example, patients commonly continue treatment regimens over several days, weeks, or months — or individuals must follow specific protocols when healing at home. Whatever the case, sharing next steps with your patients at the right time through accessible communication channels helps ensure successful continuation and completion of care plans. For instance, a bariatric surgery center needed a way to ensure patients followed the proper care instructions at home before and after their surgeries. The healthcare organization partnered with Feedtrail to distribute perfectly timed messages conveying next steps that helped deliver information to patients, provide them the opportunity to ask questions, and even improve outcomes. Feedtrail’s agile patient engagement solutions let you deliver the right message, at the right time, to the right patient. 

4. Post-discharge ”thank you” messages

A simple “thank you” can go a long way in strengthening patient experiences, creating connections, and potentially smoothing over difficulties experienced during healthcare visits. Feedtrail sends your desired “thank you“ messages automatically and even delivers additional useful information to the patient by directing them to your website, social media review pages, or wherever you’d like patients to go. Using our patient engagement solutions, one surgery center improved its patient retention by simply sending out a “thank you“ message six weeks after surgery. The message checked in with each patient to make sure they felt well after their procedures and offered resources to assist them with various aspects of long-term care. Within six months, the organization saw a noticeable increase in follow-up appointments. 

5. Supporting transitions of care

Some of the trickiest aspects of patient experiences occur within gaps between care settings — such as when patients are shifted to different providers, moved between departments, or transitioned to at-home care. Feedtrail can illuminate these fragmented moments so your team can access actionable feedback during times of change. An inpatient organization’s team noticed their patient experience (PX) scores were declining among patients with longer stays. After trying several tactics to improve various aspects of care, they turned to Feedtrail. Using questions designed to collect data during transitions of care, the facility learned that communication during handoffs between care providers needed to be improved. PX scores began to rise after resolving that issue.

6. Collecting patient–reported outcomes

One aspect that’s crucial for patient-centered care is monitoring how your patients are doing when they’re not in front of your providers. That’s where sending out quick surveys that help patients self-report blood pressure, blood sugar levels, ongoing symptoms, and more can play a key role. One organization used Feedtrail’s patient engagement solutions to boost participation with its initiative to encourage patients to self-report their blood pressure numbers using at-home cuffs. Compliance improved immediately, allowing care team members to focus on patients who needed treatment rather than resources to figure out who those patients were. 

7. Surveying for social determinants of health (SDOH)

Social determinants of health (SDOH) are non-medical factors that influence health outcomes, including income level, education level, and access to transportation. Whether you’re collecting SDOH information for government reporting purposes or just because you want to better understand and serve your patient communities, Feedtrail’s got you covered. One leading healthcare organization needed to boost its response rate of health equity and social determinant surveys to meet regulatory responsibilities. With Feedtrail, the provider’s team easily and quickly modified their listening strategy to include demographic questions. Not only did they receive far more responses than necessary to fulfill reporting, but they were also alerted to gaps in their services that were disproportionately affecting already underserved groups. Armed with this new information, they were able to improve patient experiences across the population they serve.

8. Implementing reputation management

If your patients love you (and why wouldn’t they?), then they’ll want to talk about your organization with their friends and family. So, you should give them as large a megaphone as possible. The best way to do that? Direct them to your social media review sites. Doing so can help your online ratings reflect the incredible services you provide. One large hospital system’s team knew from their patient experience scores that they were delivering excellent service, but their online reviews simply didn’t match. Only 70% of their providers had Google reviews, and their average score was stuck at 3.3/5. After using Feedtrail’s Reputation Management tool, they witnessed incredible results. Within one month, 91% of providers had feedback on the board and the organization’s new average rating surged to a 4.78/5.

Narrow Down Your Patient Engagement Solutions With Feedtrail 

No experience management process is complete without a post-visit component. But it’s not as simple as sending out some standard questions and waiting to get responses. Smart organizations know that asking the right questions at the right time to the right patients can surface valuable information. They also understand that questions are just one way to engage with patients. Following up after an appointment, helping facilitate at-home care, sending journey-specific reminders, and even shooting off simple “thank you“ messages can all help strengthen the bond between patients and your care teams. With the Feedtrail Experience Management (XM) platform, you can do all of this and then some with the flexibility to foster loyalty, decrease churn, and impact your bottom line with personalized patient engagement strategies and actionable insights. Learn more: https://feedtrail.com/solutions/.

When it comes to the healthcare experience, most people think of what happens at the physician’s office. But the reality is much more complex. A patient’s relationship with your organization begins long before they see a doctor or even check in for their appointment.

One classic example of this happens while patients prepare for their doctor visits. Thorough, consistent communication before appointments has been linked to lower no-show rates. But as consumerism increasingly affects patient expectations of care, it’s no longer just about calling individuals the day before seeing the doctor.

For example, 72% of patients read ratings and reviews before deciding on a healthcare provider. Properly satisfying expectations at the beginning of the healthcare patient journey has become more complex. Fortunately, you can set the table long before individuals set foot inside your building. When done right, you’ll be able to make a genuinely positive impression with your patients throughout their healthcare experience, growing patient loyalty dramatically and organically.

How to Improve Patient Experience in Healthcare at the Start

A few key strategies can help you establish direct dialogue with patients before they enter the clinic’s doors to ensure a seamless, personalized healthcare experience every time. Proactively sending messages about upcoming appointments, important facility updates, or new processes helps ease anxiety and reduce questions before the patient-provider encounter, helping align expectations early, promote satisfaction throughout the healthcare patient journey, and, ultimately, support stronger patient loyalty. What happens prior to an appointment is often overlooked by providers, but it can have a significant impact on your bottom line. Here are some effective ways you can set expectations and extend support before visits:

1. Mass marketing notifications

You’ve got important healthcare updates your patients need to see and hear. Texting is by far the best way to get the word out, with over half of patients preferring text notifications over emails or phone calls. By using modern mass marketing notifications, you can get this vital information into the hands of your surrounding communities quickly and efficiently so nothing falls through the cracks. Among the many patient experience examples from the pandemic, one prominent Los Angeles-area healthcare organization used Feedtrail’s platform to send out targeted messages to families who had received pediatric care at their facilities to let them know its clinics were re-opening with updated COVID safety protocols in place. Within the first week, the provider booked 22 appointments as a result of sending these messages.

2. Automated appointment messages

The pandemic notoriously caused millions of patients to put off appointments for elective (and even necessary) care. In fact, around 72% of elective surgeries worldwide were cancelled during one 12-week COVID peak. Now that people have returned for in-office visits, providers should leverage automated appointment reminders to support them. For example, one large, complex outpatient provider team was concerned that COVID was causing a high rate of appointment no-shows and cancellations. They used a scaled-down Feedtrail survey delivered through text message to communicate information about their COVID response and recapture those appointments by offering telehealth alternatives. The initiative was successful, saving over 5,000 appointments that would’ve otherwise never occurred.

3. Tools for understanding SDOH and improving access

People face numerous barriers when seeking and accessing care — from issues securing transportation to trouble finding an in-network provider in their area. The bad news is that many of these pain points relate to what happens outside of the doctor’s office. The good news is that modern-day solutions can help providers understand their patients’ challenges to ultimately help solve them. With Feedtrail’s help, healthcare organizations can drill down into specific, segmented patient populations to pinpoint exactly what gaps they experience when trying to get care. Providers can then leverage this data to develop resources specific to their surrounding communities, removing barriers and creating a more direct throughline to their services when the need arises and a better overall healthcare experience.

4. Pre-surgery check ins

Surgery is stressful enough. Over half of patients experience preoperative anxiety. But complex paperwork only adds fuel to the fire. That’s why Feedtrail plugs into your intake workflow and allows patients to complete check-in paperwork in advance, sending key reminders to patients to prepare them for their surgery dates. One prominent organization needed more patients to complete pre-surgery paperwork before arriving at the facility. Within a few weeks of leveraging Feedtrail, patients who completed their pre-surgery paperwork increased by 27%.

5. Virtual check-ins/Appointment confirmations

Appointment no-shows will throw both your scheduling operations and your revenue streams into chaos. Physician practices lose an approximate $150 billion a year because of them. Feedtrail prompts patients to confirm their appointments to take some of the burden off front-of-office staff and lend a helping hand to individuals so they don’t drop the ball. One organization uses Feedtrail to walk patients through the virtual check-in process and sets up a call with a staff member if the patient still has questions. This application of our platform has helped the provider confirm more than 2,100 appointments.

6. Simple telehealth login

Although telemedicine use has dipped slightly from its peak during the height of COVID, there’s no question it’s here to stay. That’s why telehealth is no longer a luxury, and every healthcare organization needs a reliable way to get patients through the virtual door. An organization uses Feedtrail to help its patients log into their telehealth portal by sending step-by-step instructions via a helpful link and allowing patients to ask questions that would be answered within 24 hours. Issues with telehealth logins decreased by 35%, and patient opinion of telehealth appointments improved by 41%.

Forward-thinking organizations understand and embrace the fact that patients form opinions — and develop trust — before they enter the doctor’s office. Facilities with the most impressive patient experience examples incorporate a strategy that prioritizes outreach early in the consumer journey.

Feedtrail’s platform gives providers comprehensive support to enhance patient engagement throughout the pre-appointment process, ensuring you can control your messaging, get more patients through your doors, and solve any problems quickly and seamlessly. Learn more about how to improve patient experience in healthcare with Feedtrail today.

Every healthcare organization sends its patients post-discharge satisfaction surveys, but those efforts capture an incomplete and potentially inaccurate picture of how patients view your organization and care delivery. The partial insights they produce also tend to sit around unused. If you’re not intentionally engaging with and learning from patients while they’re physically within the walls of your organization, you’re missing a massive opportunity to ensure a consistently positive patient experience.

When you ask the right questions and make responding easy with simple digital pulse surveys, you can gather in-the-moment patient feedback that provides a true reflection of the patient’s impression of their care. This allows you to act faster and make smarter improvements that speak to specific patient concerns, which ultimately contributes to higher patient satisfaction, engagement, retention, and referrals. There are several critical touchpoints when all healthcare facilities should be checking in with patients.

Patient Experience Best Practices: Assessing Initial Reactions

Before patients even see a doctor, you need to evaluate how they view your staff and facility, which can inform operational and efficiency improvements, set a positive tone through increased communication, and make patients feel more valued as you seek their opinions. Here are two ways to get useful intelligence at this stage:

Distribute first-impression surveys

A steady rise in digital tools and the accessibility of online reviews means healthcare consumers have more information than ever to help them shop around and find the best fit for them, so it’s invaluable to identify which patients have never received care at your organization and send out first-impression surveys to understand their initial sentiments. This can be as simple as a one-question text message that produces honest patient feedback unsullied by ensuing doctor-patient interactions, which can significantly shift satisfaction scores. When you know how individuals feel or what support they lack as they first walk through your doors, you can, for example, create effective welcome messages with tailored language and answers to common questions, which can help combat churn and ease anxiety.

Inquire about the wait experience

Before they even get to your facility, new patients may have already been waiting to schedule an appointment for several weeks. Their impatience and aggravation at the slow pace of the typical care journey is also reflected in wait time’s consistent appearance as the lowest-rated patient experience metric. You can respond by requesting patient feedback on the underlying reasons behind wait time dissatisfaction, which doesn’t always correlate with long waits. One prominent organization that Feedtrail worked with, for example, couldn’t improve its wait time scores even though its average wait time was much shorter than nearby competitors. The actual issue? Boredom, which made the wait seem longer than it really was. In that case, adding entertainment for adults and children in the waiting room improved satisfaction scores – even for longer wait times.

Want to Know How to Improve Patient Care? Start by Asking the Patient.

Of course, one of the most important linchpins of a positive patient experience is the patient-provider dynamic. And there’s never been a more important time to ensure that that core relationship – and the larger clinical team’s approach to care coordination – are patient-centric.

Why now? We’re at a crossroads. Among several other eye-opening findings, a recent Harris Poll survey revealed that 47% of adults believe their providers are burned out or overburdened – but at the same time, patients are increasingly calling for better communication-focused skills in those providers, such as listening, empathy, and respect, which are difficult to develop when staffing issues don’t allow for much face-to-face time. It’s a definite conundrum, but there are methods to support improvements in the delivery of care:

Implement More Provider-Specific Surveys

When used not as a punitive measure but a key element of your patient experience best practices, provider-specific surveys actually hold benefits for both patients and clinicians. Quantitative and qualitative feedback can show who your top performers are and why, providing a foundation for learning and for development of department- or organizationwide standards, as well as a platform to highlight your superstars. These surveys can drill down into the communication areas that require more investment to better support patients. They also offer a chance to improve patient education – because, while 90% of patients say their doctors answer all their questions, just 63% report that their providers always explain things in a way they understand. By asking open-ended questions about what patients need to feel comfortable and contribute to their own care decisions, you’re better equipped to enhance provider-patient trust and support positive outcomes.

Assess Transitions of Care

Some of the trickiest aspects of patient experience are in the white spaces between care settings – when a new provider takes over, when a patient is moved between departments, or when a patient transitions to home care. When not handled correctly, these often-untracked moments can create confusion, delays, and/or a feeling of being unsettled for patients on the move, so facilities should gather patient feedback around them. One inpatient organization, for example, noticed that its PX scores were declining among patients with longer stays. After trying several tactics to improve various aspects of care, leaders worked with Feedtrail to develop transition-of-care questions, through which they learned that communication during the handoff between care providers needed to be improved. Once that issue was resolved, PX scores began to rise again.

Ensuring a Positive Patient Experience Throughout an Engagement

As a final step in surveying patients while they’re onsite, ask for pre-discharge patient feedback. This allows you to retain the ability to fix problems in the moment and get honest final perspectives on common challenges in your facility. In its work with Feedtrail, one organization that was happy with its experience scores but hoping for more insightful feedback shifted the timeframe of its surveys. Instead of sending them out the day after the patient’s appointment, staff delivered them a few hours before patients left the facility. The organization’s PX scores stayed high, plus it started receiving thoughtful observations that helped identify areas for improvement, such as prepping patients for a seamless discharge.

Sending messages to your patients during encounters lets you have your cake and eat it, too – providing the ingredients for fulfilling experiences, better quality care, and ongoing operational enhancements. Let Feedtrail help you solve the riddle of how to improve patient care by bringing visibility to areas of your service you may have never considered before. Reach out to explore more patient experience best practices today.

Decades. That’s how long healthcare organizations have been surveying patients to understand their experiences within facility walls and inform decision-making as to how to improve patient care. The drive to measure patient experience (PX) started in the 1990s, but patient survey distribution didn’t begin in earnest until the 2000s. Since CMS’ rollout of Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HCAHPS) scores in 2006, the U.S. healthcare system has kicked reporting into high gear and witnessed considerable progress in PX. 

However, data shows that progress has mostly stalled out. Logically, patient experience scores declined sharply in 2021 during the pandemic. But, according to The Leapfrog Group, even in 2022 as COVID drifted into the rearview with advancements in vaccines and other treatments, PX measures continued to drop for the second year in a row.  

As a provider, how do you effectively reverse this downward trend as it becomes clear the pandemic isn’t the only culprit? The answer certainly isn’t to continue using outdated systems for collecting and gleaning insights. It lies in modernizing the engine behind your efforts – your patient experience program – to meet rapidly evolving expectations of the communities you serve. 

Why Are Current PX Measurement Efforts Falling Short? 

To get up to speed, it’s important to first understand why PX is declining. There isn’t one distinct reason patients become dissatisfied with their level of care, but rather many friction points and challenges that culminate in less-than-positive feedback. Some include: 

1. Outdated PX Survey Methods 

Often, patient experience efforts don’t gain traction due to a limited understanding of what patients truly need and value. If PX initiatives aren’t fueled by up-to-date, accurate data and a comprehensive understanding of diverse patient populations, they risk only addressing surface-level issues without truly enhancing the overall experience.  

The manual, paper-based surveys of old are tedious for patients, possibly damaging survey response rates. Redpoint Global found that 80% of patients prefer digital channels to communicate with their providers. Not only could outdated survey methods potentially disincentivize patients from filling them out, but they can take months to analyze by survey vendors — far too long to make timely, data-informed decisions to improve PX. 

Find out how HealthNet boosted survey response rates with Feedtrail

2. Haphazard Integration of Digital Technology 

It’s one thing to decide to invest in new digital technologies to streamline patient communication. But it’s another to do so in a seamless way. Even the most well-planned implementation can encounter hiccups. One study  found 70% of hospital-led IT projects face significant challenges. 

Inadequate integration or haphazard rollouts of digital tools, such as patient portals or telehealth platforms, can result in a disjointed experience. This lack of cohesion presents a roadblock to patient engagement, leaving individuals feeling disconnected and dissatisfied with their experiences. 

3. Limited Health Survey Questions 

Health systems don’t just survey patients to improve care delivery. If they participate in Medicare-supported programs, they need to consistently include health survey questions relevant to HCAHPS and other quality measures to ensure they maximize their reimbursements. 

However, restricting your patient survey to only questions required by CMS might not reveal the whole picture. These questions, for instance, don’t apply to pediatric patients or those receiving behavioral healthcare. Also, they only collect information on the inpatient experience at pre-determined touchpoints — offering providers a somewhat narrow scope of the end-to-end care experience. 

4. Suboptimal Employee Engagement 

It’s well-established that better patient-provider relationships are more likely to yield more positive health outcomes. They also support better patient experience. But such connections require an engaged healthcare workforce.  

If employees are not adequately supported, motivated, and aligned with a patient-centric vision, it can result in a disconnect between the intended experience and the actual interactions patients have with healthcare providers. This not only leads to more disappointed patients but could also encourage them to seek out alternative care providers. 

5. Underprioritized Equity Initiatives 

Society is only as healthy as its most vulnerable community members. Partially spurred by the pandemic, the past several years have seen a widespread prioritization of ensuring everyone can access and receive high-quality, compassionate care.  

But achieving more equitable healthcare is easier said than done. In fact, a recent report by the Rise to Health Coalition found most providers lack confidence in equity improvement efforts. Ultimately, leveling the playing field is a process. And it demands a deep commitment, empathic leadership, and the right strategies in place to yield real progress.  

How Can Providers More Effectively Improve the Patient Experience? 

Despite the challenges that healthcare providers face, several effective strategies can enhance their work to improve the patient experience and sufficiently satisfy expectations for care: 

• Adopt a digital-first strategy: Where possible, leave those paper surveys in the past. Meet patients where they are with SMS text messaging and convenient mobile applications to ensure they have highly accessible and usable interfaces to voice their opinions. The easier it is for patients to engage with your organization, the more they’ll feel heard.
• Consider the usability of insights for care teams: Streamlining data collection is just one piece of the equation to advancing your PX program. How accessible that data is to your care teams is another key part of the puzzle. Adopt digital patient engagement platforms that display real-time patient survey insights they can leverage to make rapid improvements and continual, real-world progress.
• Develop patient-first — instead of provider-first — operations: Traditionally, many healthcare workflows have revolved around the needs of clinical and administrative staff — partially or wholly leaving out considerations for the patient perspective. Implement strategies that put the patient first, including engaging them using preferred communication channels, adopting methods that enhance care coordination across providers, helping patients navigate fragmented care journeys, and supporting individuals before, after, and during appointments.
• Opt for solutions that generate insights from across demographics: Not every patient will have the same experience. And some people might encounter barriers to care that others don’t. To understand how to elevate the patient experience of everyone who comes under your care, analyze insights across race/ethnicity, age, gender, and other demographic categories to accurately assess disparities in experience. Actively glean social determinants of health (SDOH) data and use that information to start to address access challenges, such as lack of transportation.

How to Improve Patient Care: Start With Our Digital Platform 

When it comes to revving up your PX program, forward-thinking technologies can steer you in the right direction. The most innovative digital PX tools simplify your organization’s workflows while placing the patient at the center of care. 

Feedtrail’s novel approach to patient survey personalization and pathbreaking digital patient engagement platform give individuals convenient channels to engage with their providers — and care teams the real-time insights they need to make critical improvements when it matters the most. Want to learn more about how Feedtrail can help accelerate your PX program? Speak with one of our experts.

About Nikki Angeli MHA, BSN, RN, CPHQ, CPXP, Patient Experience Strategist: Nikki is a seasoned ICU nurse turned dynamic healthcare consultant, with over a decade of diverse experience across various patient care settings, fostering a profound understanding of healthcare intricacies. Holding national certifications in Patient Experience and Healthcare Quality, their commitment remains steadfast in upholding the highest standards of care. As a dedicated lifelong learner, her passion for continuous improvement and innovative approaches aligns seamlessly with a focus on streamlining healthcare processes for optimal efficiency. Bridging the realms of expertise and innovation, her mission is to contribute significantly to the healthcare landscape, ensuring unparalleled patient care.

As frontline providers of primary and specialty care, physician practices are often the first point of contact for individuals seeking medical attention. They’re essential to the health of the patients they treat, but the inverse is true as well – at least in terms of financial and organizational health. Without a loyal patient base, most of these clinical centers will be plagued by growing existential resource issues.  

If you think this keeps many practice leaders up at night, you couldn’t be more right. In fact, one report by the American Hospital Association found that an overwhelming 94% of physicians think running a practice has become more financially and administratively difficult.  

The good news is that, with the right best practices and technologies, particularly for your overworked patient experience manager and staff, physician practices can supercharge their patient retention efforts and excel at healthcare reputation management to help mitigate costs.  

What Are Some Costs Physician Practices Face?

The first step in grasping why patient retention is so critical for running a financially sustainable physician practice is to understand some of the associated costs that can weigh down organizations’ budgets. These expenditures include: 

1. Regulatory Compliance Expenditures 

Running a physician’s practice involves adhering to a myriad of healthcare regulations, including those related to patient privacy (HIPAA), billing and coding (CPT, ICD-10), and quality reporting. The Medical Group Management Association found 90% of practices reported increased regulatory burdens over the past year. Staying compliant with regulations requires ongoing training, investment in technology, and sometimes hiring specialized staff. Non-compliance can result in hefty penalties and legal consequences, making it crucial for physician practices to allocate resources to stay up to date with evolving healthcare standards. 

2. Technology Expenses  

After a slow start, healthcare has entered the digital age. Modernizing physician practices isn’t cheap, however, and often entails substantial technology costs. Implementing and maintaining EHR systems, practice management software, and other innovative tools is necessary for efficient operations, satisfying increasingly convenience-centric patients, and, in some cases, regulatory compliance. These systems require upfront investments and ongoing expenses for maintenance, updates, and staff training. 

3. Operating and Administrative Burden 

Administrative costs represent a sizeable portion of overall operational expenses for physician practices. This spending includes the salaries and benefits of administrative staff responsible for tasks like appointment scheduling, medical billing and coding, insurance claims processing, and general office management. One prime example is handling prior authorizations. According to the American Medical Association, physicians and their staff report spending two business days each week simply completing prior authorization forms.

4. Reimbursement Challenges and Uncompensated Care  

Physician practices often face challenges in obtaining timely and adequate payment for provided services. Dealing with insurance companies, navigating complex billing processes, and handling denied claims can be time-consuming and resource intensive. Moreover, some organizations that partially rely on Medicare reimbursements can experience delays in essential patient experience data when working with outdated survey vendors. And those gaps in collecting these important insights could prevent physician practices from making necessary changes to improve their adherence to quality measures. 

Ultimately, these costs are largely inevitable to running a successful physician practice. And one of the only ways to effectively compensate for these expenditures is by retaining and expanding your patient base. 

Patient Churn and How Healthcare Reputation Management Can Help 

Patients might choose to leave physician practices for various reasons, and understanding these factors is essential for healthcare providers to improve satisfaction and patient retention.  

One primary reason is a lack of effective communication. Patients appreciate clarity and transparency from their healthcare providers. If physicians fail to engage effectively — whether while discussing a diagnosis, treatment plans, or general information — patients may feel uninformed or dissatisfied, prompting them to seek care elsewhere. 

Underpinning gaps in communication is the overall quality of the patient experience. Long wait times, disorganized scheduling, and a lack of personalized attention can contribute to a negative patient experience — and, thus, a lack of satisfaction. Healthcare organizations that prioritize patient satisfaction by embracing efficient appointment scheduling, convenient platforms, and methods for minimizing wait times with digital-first strategies are more likely to report better patient experience. And, according to Accenture, better patient experience is associated with 50% higher revenues.  

To truly curb the churn, physician practices need to deploy effective healthcare reputation management strategies. That means prioritizing effective communication, improving the patient experience from multiple angles, and identifying gaps in care that can be effectively addressed.  

It also entails careful tracking of your practice’s progress to ensure your organization meets and, ideally, exceeds net promoter score benchmarks. Net promoter score (NPS) is a cross-industry standard that calculates your organization’s promoters, detractors, and the resulting delta to determine how favorable your service is perceived. When it comes to net promoter score benchmarks, a 50 out of a range of –100 to 100 is considered excellent in healthcare.  

But how do physician practice leaders understand how to start taking these steps? The only way is by regularly seeking patient feedback and using it to make significant changes that can contribute to a more patient-centered approach, fostering patient loyalty and satisfaction. 

Using Real-Time PX Data to Boost Patient Experience 

Improving patient experience is crucial for patient retention. Your program will only be as good as the patient experience manager you have in place and the data they collect. And that data is only as useful as the methods by which it’s organized and leveraged.  

To gather this information, practices have traditionally looked to paper surveys. But they’re inconvenient for patients increasingly accustomed to a digital-first world. And causing more inconvenience for your patients inherently goes against trying to improve their experiences. 

Another issue is time. Survey vendors that follow the status quo typically take anywhere from a couple of weeks to several months to deliver accessible insights from the data they collect for you. By the time your patients convey their feedback, they might already be out of your reach and looking for other practices in their area that will quickly respond to their needs. 

That’s why more and more physician practices are ditching outdated paper surveys in favor of digital real-time listening tools. Feedtrail’s advanced PX application streamlines data collection with the option to proactively text or email relevant surveys to patients, even before, during, and after care. On the clinical end, your staff are equipped with the most accurate, real-time information they can get to course-correct whenever issues emerge, right when they happen.  

Ready to see what Feedtrail’s technology can do for your physician practice? Speak with one of our experts.

About Ryan Phillips, Customer Success: Ryan Phillips is a member of the Feedtrail Customer Success team and based in Long Beach, California. Ryan’s background in management consulting allowed him to bring expertise in software deployment and professional services to Feedtrail as the company’s first employee. Since then, Ryan has played a pivotal role in implementing, supporting, and strategizing with customers both large and small. Ryan has also had in hand in facilitating the development of the Feedtrail XM Platform applications such as employee experience, flexible messaging, and rounding.

Let’s face it: There’s a lot of jargon in healthcare. In some ways, that’s unavoidable.

Care delivery involves distinct understandings of medical complexities, best practices, industry standards, and treatment plans. But to the everyday patient, much of what’s communicated can get lost in translation. 

For instance, one University of Missouri study  found patients not only misunderstand many medical terms doctors commonly use when speaking with them, but they actually derive opposite meanings from convoluted healthcare language. 

Terms communicated between healthcare professionals also often hold little weight unless they’re clearly defined.

One such term that comes up daily within healthcare organizations is patient experience.

What is patient experience? On its face, patient experience in healthcare encompasses how patients perceive their care episodes, subsequent interactions during treatment, and other touchpoints throughout their care journeys. 

But why is this concept so crucial to effective care delivery? What aspects of the patient experience cause it to decline? And how can healthcare organizations course-correct to improve? 

To fully grasp the patient experience at your physician practice, community clinic, or other healthcare facility, let’s dive into some basics and discuss how to refine your continuous listening strategy to exceed patients’ expectations of care. 

What is Patient Experience in Healthcare? Patient Experience Definition

The definition of patient experience covers all the interactions patients have with the healthcare system—from their care with doctors, nurses, and staff in hospitals or clinics to their experiences with health plans and beyond.

Across the intricate healthcare landscape, patient experience emerges as a vital thread — weaving together the emotional, physical, and psychological aspects of an individual’s journey through medical care.

It transcends the mere administration of treatments and diagnostic procedures, extending its reach into the realms of communication, empathy, and overall well-being.

At its core, the patient experience meaning reflects a larger end-to-end care journey.

Ultimately, when patients have more positive experiences with their healthcare providers, they report being more satisfied with their level of care. And when people are more satisfied with their level of care, they’re more likely to trust their go-to provider for future healthcare needs.

But it’s not just patient satisfaction, and thus loyalty, that improves with better patient experience in healthcare.

Evidence points to its central role in bolstering more positive health outcomes and preventing harm. It’s also closely tied to increasing NPS (Net Promoter Scores).

Overall, understanding the patient experience meaning is essential for improvement.

The Importance of Patient Experience in Healthcare: 5 Reasons Why Patient Experience Matters

Navigating the healthcare system can be intimidating, often leaving patients feeling anxious and uneasy.

That’s where a positive patient experience comes in, making a world of difference by creating a more comfortable and supportive environment.

But why is patient experience important in healthcare? Let’s break it down.

We know patient experience is the sum of all interactions a patient has with the healthcare system.

These patient experiences are crucial in shaping how comfortable and cared for someone feels during their visit.

When healthcare providers prioritize patient experience, they not only make patients feel safer and more at ease, but they also foster better engagement in their own healthcare.

This leads to better health outcomes, as patients are more likely to follow treatment plans and take medications as prescribed.

Here are five key benefits of focusing on patient experience:

• Improved Health Outcomes: Patients who feel respected and understood are more likely to engage in their care, leading to better adherence to treatment plans and medications.
• Increased Patient Satisfaction: A positive patient experience model fosters trust and communication, making patients feel heard and valued, which boosts overall satisfaction.
• Enhanced Safety: When staff focus on patient experience, they can devote more attention to safety protocols, reducing the risk of errors and improving long-term patient safety.
• Lower Costs: Positive patient experiences often lead to fewer tests, treatments, and hospital readmissions, ultimately reducing healthcare costs.
• Better Staff Morale and Retention: A strong focus on patient experience not only benefits patients but also boosts staff motivation, leading to improved recruitment and retention.

Patient experience organizations who understand the importance of these interactions can work to build a patient experience model that enhances communication, trust, and respect between patients and providers.

Whether it’s through reducing risks, improving access to care, or enhancing patient engagement, a focus on patient experiences is key to a thriving healthcare environment.

Featured Article: Patient Experience Survey Questions

Four Important Elements of Great Healthcare Patient Experience

Patient experience in healthcare truly is about more than just clinicians diagnosing, explaining, and treating ailments — it involves understanding the unique needs, fears, and hopes of each individual.

Hinging on the connection between healthcare providers and those seeking care, the human experience can’t be denied as a key puzzle piece to understanding what is patient experience at its core, as well as how it impacts patient satisfaction at both the personal and collective levels.  

To systematically assess how people experience care from their individual perspectives, organizations across the country have adopted patient survey strategies.

But the truth is that many of these methods fall short of providing accurate insights into evolving patient needs.  

They often take the form of outdated, paper questionnaires — yielding few responses and even creating friction for patients.

Vendors tasked with assisting health systems to understand the patient experience usually take months to deliver gleaned information to leadership for decision-making.

All of this leaves care teams in the dark and patients wondering if their voices are going unheard. We’re here to help you understand how to improve patient experience.

That’s why some innovative strategies have emerged for advancing these efforts forward: 

1. Continuously listen to patients at every touchpoint 

Care delivery doesn’t just happen at the bedside.

Before patients enter your hospital or practice and when they return home from the doctor, care journeys continue. It’s only natural that the patient experience in healthcare still goes on well beyond the confines of healthcare facility walls.

Shouldn’t your PX strategy do the same? Make sure to not only think about how patients experience care on location, but also how they might view your healthcare organization before their visit and how you assist them after discharge. 

2. Opt for digital-first patient experience survey platforms 

Paper surveys just don’t cut it anymore.

Partly due to physical restrictions emerging from the pandemic, 60% of patients desire digital-first approaches to care.

That’s why any effective modern-day patient experience program that emphasizes customer experience in healthcare must have a robust digital-first format.

It’s key for engaging patients in a way they’re comfortable with and streamlining data collection to empower your providers with real-time insights. 

3. Measure your workforce experience, too 

Care team engagement is classically tied to better patient experience.

But your care teams won’t engage consistently and effectively with patients unless they, too, have satisfactory experiences on the job.

Extend your survey research to your workforce to understand their pain points and drive better decision-making to foster more supportive work environments. 

4. Make your data accessible for care teams 

There’s a lot of data in healthcare. And, unfortunately, a lot of it remains fragmented and unorganized.

Carefully vet new technologies and tools to ensure they simplify data collection, then visualize it in real time for your care teams to use in an actionable way. 

Four Important Challenges to a Great Healthcare Patient Experience  

Interpersonal dynamics play a crucial role in shaping a patient’s perception of their overall experience and satisfaction.

What is patient care experience if not the sum of these interactions? Everything from how prepared patients feel for appointments to their interactions with care teams to how well-informed they are after discharge affects patient experiences.

However, creating a seamless patient experience model can be challenging due to various obstacles. Here are some of the important challenges to a great healthcare patient experience:

Featured Article: How to Improve Patient Experience

1. Long wait times

There’s no question that long wait times are a major detriment to patient experiences in hospital settings.

According to the Association of American Nurse Practitioners, 26% of patients wait two months or more for their appointments, and over half give up seeking care entirely when faced with unreasonable wait times. 

This directly impacts why patient care is important — because if patients can’t access timely care, their outcomes suffer.

2. Limited digital support

Patients want digital-first, convenient channels for navigating their care journeys.

Our increasingly consumer-centric world amplifies the need for a more personalized patient experience. 

The lack of digital support can severely hinder what is a positive patient experience, as people are more accustomed to getting what they want at the click of a button, they’re expecting the same customer experience in healthcare.

3. Poor provider engagement

By their nature, healthcare environments are somewhat sterile.

If patient experiences involve impersonal or disengaged caregivers, the care setting feels even more disconnected.

That’s not to mention the impact of harmful medical errors that could be tied to declines in physician engagement — an obvious threat to the patient experiences for all providers.

4. Failed transitions of care

It’s no secret that poorly conducted transitions of care affect outcomes.

Unfortunately, 49% of patients experience at least one medical error after discharge.

Not only could that inflict harm (unintended or not), but it also erodes the trust patients place in your establishment.

By addressing these challenges, healthcare providers and patient experience organizations can work toward creating examples of positive patient experiences that lead to better outcomes and stronger patient-provider relationships.

Six Patient Experience Examples

Understanding and optimizing patient care experience is crucial for any healthcare organization aiming to deliver high-quality care.

But what is patient care experience? It encompasses every interaction patients have with the healthcare system, from booking appointments to post-visit follow-ups.

By focusing on these interactions, healthcare providers can create examples of positive patient experiences that resonate with patients, improve outcomes, and foster trust.

Here are six examples that help make up the patient experience model and illustrate why patient care is important in healthcare:

1. Booking an Appointment

Booking an appointment is often the first point of contact between a patient and a healthcare provider, making it a critical touchpoint in the patient experience model.

Smooth and efficient appointment booking processes are essential in shaping what is a positive patient experience.

Issues such as complicated phone systems, unfriendly patient portals, or long wait times can negatively impact patient experiences in hospitals and clinics.

Access was a top concern among patients in 2023 according to an analysis of over two million patient surveys.

2. Staff Interaction

Patient experiences are profoundly influenced by the way they are treated by healthcare staff.

From the reception desk to nurses and beyond, polite and empathetic communication can ease a patient’s anxiety, creating a more comfortable and welcoming environment.

Patients who feel heard and respected are more likely to report positive patient experiences.

This interaction is a fundamental aspect of the patient experience model, showcasing why patient experience is important in healthcare—because it directly affects patient satisfaction and outcomes.

3. Excellent Facilities

The physical environment of healthcare facilities plays a significant role in defining patient experience.

Modern, clean, and well-maintained facilities contribute to what is a positive patient experience by making patients feel safe and cared for.

Whether it’s a comfortable waiting area, spotless examination rooms, or state-of-the-art medical equipment, the quality of the facilities directly influences patient perceptions.

Patient care is important not just at the bedside, but throughout the entire healthcare environment.

4. Physician-Patient Interaction

The interaction between a patient and their physician is perhaps the most critical element in defining patient experience.

Patients evaluate their experience based on the professionalism, communication, and empathy of their physician.

When doctors take the time to connect with patients on a human level—by making eye contact, actively listening, and showing genuine concern—they create examples of positive patient experiences.

This interaction not only improves diagnosis and treatment but also encourages patients to share important health information they might otherwise withhold, demonstrating why patient experience is important in healthcare.

5. Post-Visit Follow-Up with Patients

A truly comprehensive patient experience doesn’t end when the patient leaves the clinic or hospital.

Post-visit engagement is essential in ensuring that patients understand their treatment plans and next steps.

By providing clear instructions, communicating test results promptly, and offering continued support, healthcare providers can reinforce their commitment to patient care.

This ongoing engagement is a key example of a positive patient experience, demonstrating why patient care is important even after the initial treatment has concluded.

6. Bridging Cultural Divides

In today’s diverse society, understanding and respecting cultural differences is essential in delivering equitable healthcare.

Providing translation services and employing culturally competent staff are vital steps in ensuring that all patients feel understood and respected.

Addressing cultural divides not only improves patient satisfaction but also enhances the overall patient experience model by making healthcare more accessible and effective for everyone.

This is a powerful example of why patient experience is important in healthcare, as it directly impacts the quality of care and patient outcomes.

Featured Article: Best Experience Management Software

Difference Between Patient Experience and Patient Satisfaction

While they may sound similar, patient experience and patient satisfaction are distinct concepts, though they’re often used interchangeably.

Understanding patient experience vs patient satisfaction is key to improving healthcare outcomes.

To define patient experience, it’s all about whether specific, expected actions were taken during a healthcare visit.

For example, patient experiences in hospital might include receiving clear communication from doctors, detailed instructions before discharge, or a warm greeting from the staff upon arrival.

These are examples of positive patient experiences that contribute to a standardized, objective assessment of the care provided.

On the other hand, patient satisfaction measures whether a patient’s expectations for their visit were met.

This is more subjective, as each patient’s expectations can vary widely depending on their personal views on how care should be delivered.

For instance, two patients might receive the same treatment, but if their expectations differ, they could report vastly different satisfaction levels.

This is why patient satisfaction can be more challenging to gauge and compare across different cases.

Why is patient experience important in healthcare? It’s crucial because it focuses on meeting consistent standards of care that apply to all patients, regardless of their personal expectations.

This creates a more reliable and equitable healthcare system, where all patients can expect the same level of care and attention.

Patient experience organizations work to build a patient experience model that ensures these standards are met consistently.

They understand that what is patient care experience goes beyond satisfaction—it’s about ensuring that specific, necessary actions happen every time, for every patient.

While patient experiences are about the objective actions taken during care, patient satisfaction is more about how those actions align with a patient’s individual expectations.

Both are important, but focusing on patient experience helps create a more consistent and positive outcome for all patients, which is why it’s essential to recognize and respect this distinction in healthcare.

Achieve better patient experience with Feedtrail 

There isn’t one cure-all for unlocking a better patient experience in healthcare.

But there is a better way to gather actionable feedback, learn from patients, and identify issues to make improvements. 

Feedtrail’s comprehensive patient experience platform checks all the boxes when it comes to gathering patient feedback and closing the loop to give your care teams the information they need to course-correct. 

Find out how Feedtrail can boost your patient experience program by speaking with one of our experts. 

Healthcare consumerism presents benefits to both sides of the care coin. Patients get the opportunity to influence and review their providers. In turn, providers can draw from this feedback to become more responsive and proactive in how they deliver their services.

But with patient experience still seen as a major challenge for the healthcare industry in 2024, it’s clear the healthcare industry has a long way to go in meeting patients’ consumer-centric expectations of care as well as improvingpatient engagement .

That’s where HealthNet Community Health Centers stands out from the crowd. Feedtrail’s leadership recently co-hosted a Health Data Management webinar with HealthNet’s Chief Business Development Officer, Carrie Bonsack, to share best practices and lessons learned on HealthNet’s own path to satisfying patient needs. Below are three takeaways.

1. Digitize and personalize patient surveys to improve engagement

Patient surveys aren’t new. Healthcare providers have been trying to listen to and engage their patients through post-discharge prompts for over 30 years. But with the rise of increasingly digitized healthcare consumerism, what have changed are patients’ preferred communication channels.

HealthNet used to choose one week a quarter to survey its patients, aiming to get 100 responses from each health center. The surveys were on paper, one-size-fits-all, and generated 1,500 responses — a small fraction of its patient base. Additionally, all this data had to be recorded and manually analyzed before any useful insights could be gleaned to inform decision-making.

After HealthNet noticed how much patients enjoyed interacting with their phones — which sometimes even distracted them during exams — the company realized it had to make the entire process more accessible and personalized to change course. It knew it had to leverage SMS messaging.

HealthNet now sends its patients short, engaging surveys via text. With the help of Feedtrail’s platform, it can customize questions and send the surveys in three languages. HealthNet now receives an impressive 19,000 responses per year — all of which are delivered instantaneously into the hands of care team members who can act on them in real time.

This level of responsiveness on the part of a healthcare organization instills a sense of trust in patients, who see that their providers value their input and are committed to meeting their expectations. It also boosts patient engagement and serves as the foundation of a highly beneficial feedback loop. Moving from generic surveys to those that are more personalized makes it possible for providers to drill down and analyze data by location, service line, or provider. This granularity enables increased visibility into the organization and insight into where and how it can do better — essential factors in an effective patient experience program.

Historically, patient feedback has been limited to data collected after discharge. So, naturally, this can contribute to an uptick in patient engagement further along the patient journey.

However, the most effective patient experience programs focus on engagement starting before visits and continuing until after patients are discharged In a July 2022 Patient Experience Maturity Survey administered across thousands of U.S. healthcare organizations of all sizes, Feedtrail found that 68% of organizations said they need to improve their pre-visit engagement, over a third said they could do better during visits, and only 15% felt their post-discharge surveying was actionable.

Some best practices HealthNet discovered for increasing patient engagement at three distinct points of care include:

Pre-visit: Set expectations

When HealthNet started getting a lot of appointment no-shows, it reached out to its patients to learn why. Was it COVID? Childcare? Transportation barriers? The company found that simple communication before a visit went a long way. For instance, construction going on nearby or a change in the location of an appointment could cause stress on the day of a visit. Discussing factors like these with patients reduced anxiety and helped them feel supported — encouraging them to show up in the right place at the right time.

During the visit: Manage expectations

It’s paramount to ensure that patients feel welcome and accustomed to current processes and procedures. Several Feedtrail customers have found that an SMS welcome message puts patients at ease as soon as they walk through the door, while text correspondences about doctors who might be running behind schedule reduce frustration and increase senses of trust and transparency.

Post-visit: Exceed expectations

Patients often aren’t in the right state of mind to reply to surveys after a procedure or doctor’s visit. That’s why, in addition to personalizing their outreach, healthcare facilities need to extend engagement efforts to families and caregivers, whose feedback is a rich source of insights.

2. Demonstrate the impact of patient experience efforts with numbers and visuals

Ultimately, the key to success for all patient experience programs is the ability to demonstrate impact to providers and boards. This can prove to be a difficult task for some healthcare organizations, but a more–than–worthwhile one. Accenture study from 2016 reported that U.S. hospitals that provide “superior” customer (or patient) experience achieve 50% higher net margins than those delivering a merely “average” experience.

Data visualization is a highly effective tool in these efforts. HealthNet’s board benefited from easy-to-use Feedtrail dashboards that tie patient engagement to hard figures like Net Promoter Scores (NPS). Providers and operational leaders can also use Feedtrail’s platform to connect positive changes in patient sentiment to decreases in burnout and improved retention rates.

One platform to level up your listening capabilities

Establishing an effective, high-performing patient experience program means shifting to a patient-centric listening strategy. That transition is achievable — but not with generic, outdated, post-discharge patient surveys.

Forward-thinking tools like Feedtrail’s XM Platform enable your healthcare workers to engage with patients and their caregivers, understand how they think and feel, and provide them with the right insights to deliver an effective and personalized patient experience across the entire continuum of care.

Establishing an effective, high-performing patient experience program means shifting to a patient-centric listening strategy. That transition is achievable — but not with generic, outdated, post-discharge patient surveys. 

For people who’ve worked at least a few years in the U.S. healthcare industry, it can be difficult to reflect on the busiest and hardest days of COVID-19 – and near impossible to consider ever again facing the existential threats the pandemic posed. Hospitals and other facilities were packed to the brim. Operational leaders had to innovate simply to maintain industry standards. And forget carpe diem – most care teams strived to simply survive the day. 

All of this culminated in an unfortunate turn for the worse: declines in patient experience across just about all hospitals. But these difficult times? Sadly, they aren’t just going away. The industry is still dealing with outdated infrastructure, strained resources, and historic labor shortages, resulting in a dim outlook several years after the pandemic’s onset. 

As many healthcare organizations look for the light at the end of this public health emergency, what lessons can they carry into the future? And what solutions are best suited for closing gaps in the patient journey? 

Challenges to a seamless care experience

1. Extended wait times – Waiting for an appointment doesn’t just feel like it’s taking longer. One source cites a 2022 survey that found it now takes 26 days (nearly an entire month!) to schedule a doctor visit — a 24% jump from 2004.  

2. Communication gaps – Ensuring clear and compassionate communication in the healthcare setting is difficult for even the most seasoned providers. Almost two-thirds of patients forget to ask important questions during their visits. And most medical terms clinicians use baffle the people they treat, creating a potentially confusing patient journey. 

3. Burned-out healthcare workers – Simply put, the healthcare workforce is not okay. Medical professionals are burned out, stretched thin, and leaving the field as a result. One of the main contributors to record burnout is unreasonable workloads. And as clinicians are overburdened by stress, their engagement declines — possibly impacting the care they deliver and patient experience measures. 

What these pervading problems suggest is that, despite the emergence of technological advancements that potentially could streamline care operations and satisfy stakeholders across the care continuum, innovation has yet to address some of the core friction points that present real barriers for patients and providers. 

The emergence of healthcare consumerism and the patient voice

Prioritizing patient experience is essential as healthcare organizations seek to improve the patient journey and incorporate the patient voice into improvements. And a logical starting point has been to understand how to better reach patients where they are, when they need assistance the most.  

One primary trend is digital consumerism. Patients increasingly expect a digital-first care experience when interacting with providers. For example, an Experian Health report found that most patients crave digital platforms for appointment setting, paying bills, and navigating their care journeys.  

Going hand-in-hand with an increasing preference for digital-first care are higher standards for providers. EHRs undoubtedly streamlined clinical workflows. But they’ve also put pressure on care teams to collect more patient data, meaning more time looking at a computer screen and less time looking at patients in the eye. Recent research found 61% of patients want better engagement from their medical professionals. 

Delivering patient-first care in a digital world

There’s no question that evolving consumerism trends have influenced patient expectations of care. Patients increasingly are demanding more seamless, convenient, and personalized experiences from their providers across the patient journey. 

Here are some notable features to look for: 

1. Real-time feedback – Taking a manual approach to a digital healthcare landscape is no longer an option. Organizations must embrace digital patient engagement solutions that gauge patient experience measures in the moment to truly empower care teams with the right data to deliver best-in-class care. 

2. User-centric digital interfaces – It’s not enough to embrace digitization. Healthcare organizations must consider the impact of their digital technology choices on user experience. For example, most patients want to use one platform for navigating their care experience, so providers should restrict the amount of fragmented point solutions they put in front of those they treat. 

3. Rapid resolutions to subpar experiences – Beyond understanding patient concerns in real time, providers must also act upon this data quickly to meet higher expectations of care. This means that digital tools for collecting and organizing patient-reported information must also be accessible and understandable to care teams that need to use them. 

Reimagine medical reputation management

To elevate patient experience and strengthen your brand in an ever-evolving healthcare landscape, you can no longer rely on outdated listening systems. You need a dedicated partner like Feedtrail to engage patients by asking them exactly the right questions at exactly the right time to understand friction points and areas of improvement. 

Feedtrail’s experts have developed a comprehensive solution that streamlines patient engagement, service recovery, and medical reputation management, so your staff aren’t burdened by another fragmented platform and they’re able to keep an eye on concerns across the entire patient journey. Contact us today to learn more about how Feedtrail’s real-time healthcare experience management technology and digital patient engagement tools can help you unlock new levels of patient satisfaction.  

About Mallory Magelli McKeown, Customer Success: Meet Mallory, a healthcare professional dedicated to improving the patient experience. With a background in roles like chaplain and family advocate, Mallory’s mission is simplifying healthcare for patients and families. From advisory councils to patient advocacy, she amplifies the patient’s voice. At Feedtrail, she redefines the patient-provider relationship, asking vital questions to guide healthcare leaders toward patient-centered changes. Her goal: revolutionizing healthcare by putting patients’ needs first.

The COVID-19 pandemic has proven to be the ultimate healthcare industry disruptor, like Netflix to the DVD industry – but instead of streaming video, it ushered in a steady stream of changes to care delivery and new patient expectations. While society has settled into a post-pandemic phase, these expectations remain and continue to evolve. In demand now are telehealth services, improved safety measures, behavioral health services, and, above all, patient-centered care that encourages shared decision-making, listening, and transparency.  

That shift has challenged leaders and workforces who are trying to adapt while still coping with staffing deficits that have contributed to them feeling overworked and underappreciated. This new environment has moved the goalposts for what patient satisfaction in healthcare means and left many wondering how to improve patient experience (PX).   

Our Chief Strategy Officer, Paul Jaglowski, connected with leaders across a variety of healthcare settings to discuss the state of PX and best practices they abide by. We noticed five central themes and hope that they’ll help you meet new challenges as well as your organizational goals. 

1. Invest in patient engagement solutions 

Healthcare leadership continues to acknowledge the importance of having adequate information management systems in place to monitor quality, experience, and safety metrics within their organizations.  

Critical information often comes from leader rounding, which serves a valuable purpose in understanding how to improve patient experience and should continue. However, surveys and digital patient engagement solutions can capture a deeper pool of insights. Leveraging technology to administer surveys offers benefits such as: 

• Anonymity: Detaching names from surveys encourages more honest responses. 
• Scalability: Surveys can be administered to all patients who receive medical care in your facility rather than a small sample, providing a more accurate picture of the average experience.  
• Standardization: Every respondent receives the same questions in the same order, making it simpler to compare responses and analyze data.  
• Convenience: Surveys can be conducted after the patient is discharged, making it easier for them to participate. 
  

Your director of patient experience is critical to identifying the right questions to ask patients and collecting measurable data through real-time surveys. Continually using insights from this data to inform service recovery drives improved quality of care, enhanced patient loyalty, continuous improvement, compliance with regulatory requirements, and demonstrated accountability to patients and stakeholders.  

“By investing in a deeper understanding of the metrics, both for outcome and process tracking, healthcare teams can be far more equipped to evaluate and impact the patient’s experience in real time,” said Knox Singleton, former CEO of Inova Health System. 

It’s also critical to track performance with the right platform. Singleton added, “without a tool in place to measure these metrics in real time, any healthcare organization will be at a noticeable disadvantage.” 

2. Establish real-time transparency

Executives also noted that a quarterly review of metrics covering patient satisfaction in healthcare doesn’t cut it when holding larger discussions about how to improve patient experience. Though you may receive transparent feedback from a patient, you’re waiting up to three whole months to hear it and react to it, leaving the door open to repeating the same avoidable mistakes. No one has time for that. Except the competition, who will gladly scoop up the patients you’ve left behind.

Additionally, this approach facilitates negative word-of-mouth reviews; imagine one patient’s frustration when they have a poor experience, share that through their patient satisfaction survey, and then find out an acquaintance experienced the very same adverse event two months later.   

Organizations are instead looking for real-time transparency into patient satisfaction scores and comments so they can not only respond to that patient promptly but also change the way they deliver care. Using digital platforms and patient engagement solutions not only transforms the healthcare experience but creates a rewarding environment for the care team. 

“Our real-time patient feedback platform allows my team to collect raw patient feedback and distill the most crucial insights in a matter of seconds,” explained Kathy Ritch, Director of Service Excellence, High Point Regional Hospital. “It gives my team and me complete transparency over what is going on in the hospital so that I can make sure our team is recovering any service issues that patients might have prior to discharge.” 

3. Connect prior to discharge

Most of the individuals we spoke with expressed frustration that they had no way to learn about a patient’s concerns until after the patient had been discharged. This unfortunate status quo is no longer a limitation. (Cue the “hallelujah” from your favorite director of patient experience.) By investing in a real-time patient feedback and information management platform that automatically communicates patient concerns to on-duty teams, organizations can perform service recovery before patients even leave the hospital. 

Chaneka Pigatt, COO of CareSouth Carolina, said: “With our real-time patient feedback system, the site administrator knows in real time whether a patient had a good or bad experience and can contact that patient directly if he or she left a response that warrants service recovery. And all data is in personalized dashboards, so you can quickly identify trends and create better best practices for the overall footprint.” 

4. Develop a learning culture

Data is only meaningful in an organization that encourages and values continuous learning and professional development. A learning culture is led by people open to new ideas and perspectives. It promotes flexibility and innovation, provides a supportive environment, emphasizes ongoing improvement, and perhaps most important, focuses on outcomes.  

The leaders pushing healthcare into a new age can only understand how to improve patient experience when they are unafraid to hear patient concerns and criticisms, are invested in evolving their operations, and are willing to implement short- and long-term solutions to the problems they uncover. And they must survey regularly with a platform that meets their PX needs. 

“Before implementing a real-time patient feedback platform we were collecting lengthy, annual surveys that received very low response rates,” recalled Jack Bretcher, COO at PartnerMD. “Receiving this survey data several months after patients’ most recent experiences with us resulted in our team struggling to find value from the limited volume of insights.” 

To correctly leverage the data provided by patient engagement solutions, leaders must also ensure that team members feel a sense of psychological safety so they can share what went wrong during a patient interaction without fear of reprisal. Likewise, team members need to feel comfortable presenting innovative ideas to foster patient satisfaction. 

5. Hear from patients in their own words

Jennifer Allison, Manager at Inova VIP 360, echoes this sentiment: “It has been great to hear from patients in their own words about the care that we provided. We have been able to diagnose issues with the patient’s experience as soon as they arise and make adjustments to the patient’s journey.” 

Enhance PX and patient satisfaction in healthcare with Feedtrail 

Feedtrail’s experience management platform can help you implement these best practices at your organization. Engage at critical moments of each patient’s journey before, during, and after their visit, and gain powerful insights that can change your organization’s trajectory for the better. With the right tools in place, you can rest assured that your patients consistently feel recognized and heard. 

To learn how the platform can support your organization, contact us today. 

About Ashley Worrall, Head of Marketing: Meet Ashley, a seasoned marketing, communications, and design expert boasting a rich tapestry of expertise cultivated over 15 years in the ever-evolving realms of healthcare and technology. She has strategically navigated diverse healthcare markets. From compelling pitches of enterprise software to the discerning C-Suites of large health systems, to fostering connections with software users in community health clinics, Ashley has left an indelible mark. Fueling Ashley’s professional zeal is a deep-rooted passion for revolutionizing healthcare. She is an ardent advocate for improving healthcare systems and outcomes. With a relentless commitment to developing and sharing though provoking and beneficial content, Ashley endeavors to not only communicate but also catalyze positive change within the healthcare landscape.

MedCity News: How Receiving Positive Patient Feedback Can Help Boost Clinicians’ Job Satisfaction 

Feedtrail’s Clinician Retention Workgroup was recently featured in a MedCity News article: 

“Feedtrail believes healthcare workers become more satisfied in their roles when they’re connected to messages of patient gratitude, so it built technology to deliver that positive feedback to clinicians. The company recently announced the results of a five-month clinician retention workgroup, finding that 77% of clinicians agreed that consistently receiving positive patient messages reinforced their purpose. 

Healthcare’s burnout crisis is having a disastrous effect on staffing levels. The annual turnover rate for staff nurses is 22.5%, which costs healthcare organizations $8.55 million annually.  

Feedtrail — a Raleigh-based healthcare software company — believes its platform can help mitigate this crisis. The company thinks healthcare workers often become more satisfied in their roles when they’re connected to messages of patient gratitude, so it built technology to deliver that positive feedback to clinicians.” 

Read the full article on MedCity News: https://medcitynews.com/2023/05/physician-burnout-job-satisfaction-nurse-clinician/