Today’s value-based health care requires emergency rooms, urgent care facilities and doctor’s offices to emphasize the patient’s experience. To improve care and go beyond a patient’s expectations, medical facilities must offer their staff training in communication and learn to use the power of patient feedback.
The Effects of Value-Based Care
As the name implies, value-based care is a model where medical providers receive payment based on health outcomes. Instead of patients paying a fee for a service, patients pay based on their expectations. So, where do medical facilities start to improve patient experience? They must look at the satisfaction of current patients.
Medical providers should offer patients satisfaction surveys. The data collected from the surveys go a long way to harnessing patient feedback. Also, providers should engage in casual conversations with their patients. Asking a patient for their opinion directly can help providers make immediate changes.
Develop a Patient Experience Strategy
Providers should create a team of health care professionals whose sole purpose is to develop patient experience strategies. From implementing urgent care EHR software to improve patient wait times to executing a training program for service excellence, the team should build strategies that deal directly with health outcomes. Employee involvement should be a top priority.
Discussion Topics
In value-based health care, team meeting discussion topics must include enhancing the patient’s experience. The bottom line is if a desired outcome is not achieved by the medical provider, they will not receive payment. The discussion must include employee feedback and suggestions for enhancing and improving the patient’s experience.
Implementing advanced patient tracking software, such as installing urgent care EHR software, is only a small piece of the patient experience puzzle. Faster scheduling and billing obviously play a role in patient care, but good old-fashioned communication is still an integral part of health care.
For more information visit PulseCheck.
