Patient experience continues to be a trending topic in healthcare and one that we think is well worth the deep-dive. What does it really mean? Why should you care? How should you approach it? Where and how does technology come into play, if at all?
All the questions beg further discussion, which is why we recently hosted our first-ever Patient Experience Forum at Texas Medical Center’s Innovation Institute. We brought healthcare executives and clinicians together to weigh in on what it means to create a meaningful and positive patient experience and the role technology can play in enabling its successful delivery.
If you care about optimizing the clinical experience for your patients, here are our top three takeaways to pay attention to.
The patient experience really begins before your patients even step into your office and lasts long after they leave. From checking your organization’s online reviews pre-visit to following a post-visit care plan, there are countless points across a patient’s care journey that come together to form the ideal patient experience. Make sure you are well-equipped to address every interaction that a patient can have with your organization.
Our keynote speaker, Dr. Medhavi Jogi, emphasized that the strategy for building a better patient experience revolves around creating processes at your organization that enable providers to spend more quality time truly interacting with patients. Dr. Jogi approaches this with the help of technology; he texts his patients any intake forms and pre-appointment education so that when they sit down with him, they are fully engaged with the care they can expect to receive. Plus, he avoids the process of EHR data entry competing for his attention.
Here’s a look at some simple patient engagement campaigns that promote essential care and high-dollar procedures to help fill both care gaps and revenue gaps.
Finally, whatever approach you decide to take to build great patient experiences, just keep it simple. The more seamless your processes are, the smoother the visit is for your patient, and the easier time you’ll have as a provider as well. Keep this in mind especially when selecting tech tools. Will they make it easier for your patients to interact with you? Does it help democratize care by promoting access for all? Does it help automate your workflow and lighten your workload so that you can spend more time delivering care? Ask the right questions and you’ll find yourself the right solution.
With so many opportunities to optimize the patient experience across the care journey, it can be overwhelming to figure out where to begin. But keeping your patients at the center of your efforts will guide you in the delivery of high quality care.
