Navigating healthcare services can be tiresome and problematic for some patients. Regardless of the circumstances that bring them to you, be it an earache, pregnancy, or accident requiring urgent care, the care they receive will be different, even if you adhere to the exact time standards.
Each patient is unique, and their interpretation of your care will significantly influence their experience and outcomes, regardless of your perceived success. This understanding can make healthcare providers more self-aware and attentive to each patient’s needs and perceptions.
As a care provider, you understand the frustration of navigating a complex and broken healthcare system all too well. Therefore focusing on the patient experience is crucial. It ensures the best outcomes and upholds the highest standards of care.
So, what can you do to help your patients have the best experience possible?
Suggest Concierge Care
Concierge medicine, a service where patients pay an annual fee for enhanced care and services, can be a great option if your patient has exhausted all of their options or is inherently unhappy with the level of care or speed of service. While delivering patients to the arms of another provider isn’t the best option, this model of care can provide a more personalized and attentive experience for patients.
Suppose you don’t feel you can offer them the type of service they need or are asking for a provider who can provide a personalized service, who can deliver care and train round the clock in a more private and personal setting. This is where suggesting concierge medicine can be helpful. While you won’t be directly involved in providing the care. You are directing your patients to an opportunity to make a more informed decision about what is available if they’re not entirely satisfied.
Research and Informed Decisions
Encouraging patients to research and share their medical records can empower them and enhance their experience by providing a deeper understanding of their conditions and treatment plans. By getting your patients to learn more about their medical history, files, and general health, you can provide them with more knowledge to further understand their treatment plans and your approach. If they do not fully understand what is going on and what they are being diagnosed with, this can cause friction, thus impacting your relationship and leading to doubts and concerns being raised.
By sharing their medical files and imparting knowledge while encouraging them to do their own research to understand their conditions or illnesses better, they can improve their experience as they will automatically be more informed about what is happening or what they can expect to happen in the future.
Encourage Questions
People need to know details about their circumstances, their future, and why you’re choosing this type of treatment over something else as their care provider.
Always be open and honest with patients, sharing details as thoroughly as possible in layman’s terms. Encourage them to ask questions either at the appointment or to compile them for the next one. Be approachable and willing to give them the answers they need and want.
Research consistently shows that patient involvement in their care leads to better outcomes. By encouraging questions, embracing patient concerns, and working collaboratively with patients, you can empower them to take an active role in their health and well-being. This optimistic approach can motivate healthcare providers to continue involving patients in their care.
Standards Of Care
Providing high standards of care across the board, from receptionists to nurses, janitors, and any third-party services you use, is an excellent way of supporting the patient experience. It’s a testament to your commitment and responsibility to ensuring patient satisfaction at every step of the way. This commitment can solidify your dedication and commitment to the role you fill in a patients life as a team.
A fractured approach that does not reflect the standards of care you want to deliver will impact the entire experience. All it takes is for one person not to reach the expected standards to break trust and leave a sour taste in the patient’s mouth.
Appropriate training and ongoing support for everyone involved in the care you deliver are vital to ensure that everyone is singing from the same hymn sheet to aim for consistency in care and optimal results.
Intorduce Telemedicine
Telemedicine, the use of technology to provide remote healthcare services, is improving patients’ experiences and standards of care across the board. According to a McKinsey report, around 60% of patients and healthcare providers found that telemed services improved patient experience. Still, only 36% of providers found it easier for them. Since the onset of the COVID pandemic, while more providers are offering the service, fewer are using it, and in-person appointments are recommended where possible.
That being said, the overriding consensus from the patient’s perspective is that telemedicine is better for them and more accessible because it limits how frequently they travel to get healthcare services or advice. Many questions can be answered virtually or via the telephone, making booking and attending appointments easier as the patient can be anywhere with a phone line or the internet.
In addition, technology has many benefits, including increased adherence to directives, better outcomes, fewer patients missing appointments, and increased support networks between doctors. Thus, technology improves patient care by introducing a more straightforward approach to healthcare.
Decrease Paperwork
Decreasing paperwork can significantly improve your patient satisfaction scores and enable you to make the process of attending appointments easier and faster. Patients often need to spend time filling in the same information, which can be frustrating. Having a system that lets you or the patient upload the required information to the system once and then verify details upon arrival can simplify the appointments for both staff and patients.
Adopting an integrated system internally can help you to communicate and access files other providers have for your patients, i.e., if they’ve been to urgent care recently or had referrals to other services you don’t provide in-house. This seamless approach to healthcare allows you to make more informed decisions for the patient and offer them the best experience and outcome as you have access to more information and can easily share this information with other providers.
Systems that can communicate with insurance providers will also make it easier for your facility and the patient. This reduces time spent contacting companies and making claims, as you can do so automatically. NextGen, Athenahealth, and AdvancedMD all provide software applications designed to improve the patient experience and reduce paperwork.
