Google "patient satisfaction" or "patient experience" and you will be presented with an overwhelming volume of information.
The results will range from approaches contending that a focus on patient satisfaction can lead to bad medicine (1) to the recently implemented five-star rating system (2) that Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) currently deployed intending to help consumers identify hospitals with a high level of patient satisfaction.
It is about ensuring there are strong, sustainable systems along with a welcoming attitude.
The Systems Approach to Patient Satisfaction & Experience:
It won’t happen by wishing it to be. It won’t happen by sending an email or designing an incentive package. It is also not just about nurses being "nicer" or more responsive to call lights.
Below are three examples of the system you will need to have firmly in place.
1. Discharge Follow Up Calling
An alarming number of hospitals continue to approach discharge calling as a vehicle to ask the patient to score them well to look good in a survey. Instead, the approach should be to take part in the continuum of care. This is what will improve their experience. (High Touch & High Tech)
Sources:
1) Rice, S. (2015, June 4). Bioethicists say patient-satisfaction surveys could lead to bad medicine. Retrieved July 2, 2015.
2) Patient survey (HCAHPS) - Hospital | Data.Medicare.Gov. (n.d.). Retrieved July 2, 2015.