Feedtrail’s Clinician Retention Workgroup Proves the Impact of ‘Patient Gratitude’ on Healthcare Workforce Morale

The provider-led study found that participants were 17% more likely to remain in their profession after receiving timely kudos from patients and families

 

RALEIGH, NC (May 2, 2023) ‒ Feedtrail, the healthcare industry’s leading experience management technology provider, completed a five month Clinician Retention Workgroup to quantify the impact of sharing patient gratitude – or “kudos” – in a real-time and automated fashion on clinician morale and, ultimately, retention. In the first study of its kind, the technology platform, which enables real-time surveys, ratings, and engagement with patients, families, and caregivers, leveraged patient experience data to reconnect clinicians to their purpose and positively impact critical health system KPIs. At the conclusion of the study, 77% of clinicians agreed that consistently receiving patient kudos reinforced their purpose and all participants saw improvements in the likelihood providers would remain in their profession, increasing 17% on average.

 

The initial cohort, including Cedars Sinai (Los Angeles, California) and its affiliate, Huntington Health (Pasadena, California), FirstHealth of the Carolinas (Pinehurst, North Carolina), and a large medical group in West Texas, selected care settings for participation that were characterized by worker fatigue during three years of the COVID-19 pandemic, including a diverse mix of inpatient and outpatient settings, with varying department use cases, such as an emergency department and physician practices. With the annual staff RN turnover rate at 22.5%, costing organizations $8.55m annually, and lack of appreciation coming in as the top reason healthcare workers want to leave their organization, finding new ways to successfully engage employees is paramount.

“Sharing patient gratitude internally has historically been a manual process, anecdotal, or difficult to track. By enabling the sharing of patient kudos on a regular basis organizations have a powerful tool to help battle employee exhaustion and burnout. Real-time engagement means patients remember their experiences more clearly. Thus, they can share timely appreciation to clinicians that is encouraging,” Feedtrail Chief Executive Officer Stephanie Alexander said. “Through this workgroup, we’ve created a successful framework with a direct ROI that other organizations can easily implement.”

Healthcare organizations leveraged Feedtrail’s flexible survey platform to collect real-time patient and family-initiated kudos that were promptly shared with their care teams. To measure the impact of these efforts, an employee baseline and pulse survey were conducted, and healthcare executives and patient experience leaders routinely convened to discuss best practices. Among the key findings of the workgroup, which recognized nearly 800 frontline employees, were leading indicators that financial gains could be achieved through a focused program to share positive patient feedback with employees.

 

• 77% of providers felt that consistently receiving patient kudos reinforced their purpose and meaning 

• A focused effort around sharing positive patient feedback improved providers’ perception of recognition by 25%

• With timely recognition, employees were more likely to remain in their profession, with all care settings reporting at least 89% agreement with the statement in the pulse survey, up 17% from the baseline survey

“We know our employees are tirelessly working to deliver the best possible care for patients, and we want to make sure meaningful interactions are not overlooked so employees feel appreciated and celebrated. It has been fantastic to share so many uplifting comments from patients with our team, said workgroup participant Dominque Cain, Patient Experience Project Lead at Huntington Health. “The industry turnover rate for nurses currently sits at 22% but by layering on patient gratitude we have a tool to both retain our amazing workforce and positively impact the bottom line.”

In completing the Clinician Retention Workgroup, each organization will receive a ‘playbook’ for maintaining a program of enhanced employee engagement and kudos sharing. Feedtrail will continue to work with participants to monitor trends and outcomes and identify new care settings to roll out the framework. Organizations looking to replicate this success at their organization can implement Feedtrail’s Clinician Retention module in a matter of days.

 

For more details on the Clinician Retention Workgroup and module, please visit this webpage.

 

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About Feedtrail

With Feedtrail, healthcare organizations can learn and deliver what matters most to patients, providers, caregivers, and employees. Our secure, cloud-based experience management (XM) solutions and advanced data analytics enable customer experience teams to engage and connect with the right people at the right time, uncover prescriptive insights, and take purposeful action to drive continuous improvement and measurable results across the lifecycle of care. Over 100 innovative health systems across 5,000 sites in 40 countries already use Feedtrail to uncover explicit opportunities to improve human-centered care and advance better outcomes for people and the business of healthcare. Learn more at www.feedtrail.com.