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If Hollywood can revive old movies or create sequels about stories from years ago, like 1986’s Top Gun, then I can revive some old topics that are still relevant today. Back in 2017, Amy Kotch wrote a Salient Healthcare blog on Patient Engagement. While she certainly highlighted a few key points, such as the value of the Annual Wellness Visit and developing a better physician-patient relationship, there are out-of-the-box ideas that, while intangible, can go a long way towards boosting patient satisfaction, leading right into patient engagement. Yes, you want good remarks on your Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (CAHPS) survey, which is going to make up nearly 1/3 of quality reporting, however, part of the key to that is genuinely giving your beneficiaries a reason to be happy (which is a relatively new mindset in healthcare). It’s also important to note that patient satisfaction can boost attribution and market share, and I will actually be discussing both of those topics in the next month. Keep an eye out!
When I was working for a Level 3 Patient Centered Medical Home in West Palm Beach, my then-Medical Director often referred to it as, “Creating an extraordinary sense of wellbeing.” In my early years I remember thinking, “What does that have to do with healthcare?” However, the longer I have been in the industry, I’ve come to realize that it’s one of the big keys to patient satisfaction.
Case in point, there have been several studies on hospital patient satisfaction linked to the food they receive during their stay. Not the care they receive. Not the bedside manner of the doctors and nurses. The food! Now, many of us have seen that hospitals are beginning to look more and more like five-star hotels over the last decade, and that’s not a coincidence. It’s because patient satisfaction seems to have more to do with the emotional wellbeing of the patient as opposed to just the physical wellbeing that is being treated.