In the South, Chick-fil-A is legendary and it's not even because of the chicken sandwich. Sure, they have great food, but we constantly rave about their customer service. What makes Chick-fil-A so good at what they do is that they constantly adapt to the needs of the consumer. The drive-thru lines are too long? They opened two of them! The drive-thru lines are still too long? They put actual people in the drive-thru (regardless of the weather) to take orders via tablet and send them into the restaurant! Chick-fil-A is THE standard for customer service. They see and hear us and we love them for it. But the world of healthcare has seemingly been exempt from the high expectations consumers place on businesses. Our practices have been places that served the community well while operating by different rules.
As doctors, we saw patients and our only requirement was that we provide exemplary care. Our practices were not expected to function like local banks and restaurants when it came to customer service. Those days are gone. Over the past few years, we have consistently discussed the importance of empathy and treating patients as people, but an October 2018 study by The Beryl Institute tells us that patients now want more. The study selected 2,000 healthcare consumers across five countries (1,000 within the United States) and, while not surprising, the results point to the fact that our patients expect the same customer experience from their doctor as they do Chick-fil-A, Amazon, or the local auto dealership. Patient experience (PX) is defined by Beryl as the "sum of all interactions, shaped by an organization's culture, that influence patient perceptions across the continuum of care." While it would sound great to float that definition out in an upcoming staff meeting and move on, the most important thing we can do is understand what PX means to the patient and how to improve it in our practices. What does PX mean to the patient? Beryl discovered the answer to this question by providing healthcare consumers with a group of randomized items to rank in the following three categories: People, Process, and Place. Out of the top 10 PX components, seven center around people. How we listen, communicate, treat, empower, and value our patients' opinions drive the overall experience of the visit. We often think of listening and communicating in terms of "being the right thing to do," but what we are seeing in the world of healthcare is a demand from patients that we listen and consider their thoughts, feelings, and opinions. The Beryl study found that over 90% of respondents believe PX to be important with 59% weighing it as "extremely important." The demand to treat the whole person is a direct result of the ongoing shift in the business/consumer relationship. As this shift continues, our success will hinge upon our ability to take PX to the next level. The question is, how do we do it? How to improve PX in our practice This piece would turn into a novel if we tried to solve PX in one post, but if we look back over Beryl's definition, the phrase "sum of all interactions" should give us cause to pause. The continuum of care no longer applies only to treatment and how we communicate with patients. Our patients now expect Chick-fil-A-like service from us. The first step in PX improvement is to analyze each area of your practice. It may be obvious, but it is worth restating that the goal here is to improve the experience of the patient. This means you have to be focused on quality in healthcare, patient satisfaction, and convenient care. It is very likely that you already excel in the first two, but many practices struggle when it comes to convenience and need to make significant investments to improve. You want to put yourself in your patient's shoes as they go through each phase of your practice. As you take a walk through your practice, focus on breaking down any barriers your patients have to face. If it helps, think of your practice as a traditional retail business. Here are some areas your practice might be struggling in PX with regard to convenience:
As you take a deep dive into each area of your practice, begin developing a plan to tackle each barrier a patient faces. Conclusion Every department has to be focused on increasing PX in order for your practice to thrive as more options and buying power shift toward the patient. The Beryl Institute notes that this "is perhaps one of the most significant brand opportunities for healthcare organizations today... The consumers' perspective on patient experience offers not only validity to many of the core assumptions of the experience effort in healthcare, but also reveals a path for prioritizing action, ensuring focus and moving forward with intention. "It provides a great opportunity for healthcare organizations to reset their efforts without substantial reinvestment or reallocation of resources. Instead, it calls for recommitment to the experience healthcare organizations hope to provide others. This is the opportunity unveiled in these insights from those who experience healthcare. It is their challenge. It is an endeavor from which healthcare must not waiver." These changes won't happen overnight, but studies like this by The Beryl Institute are clearly telling those of us in healthcare that we must act now in order to meet the demands of our patients.
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AuthorThe staff and doctors at VisionAmerica are committed to providing relevant information for you, your patients and your practice. We hope you find the information in our blog post helpful. Archives
August 2019
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