4 Meaningful Ways Health Care Facilities Can Improve Patient Satisfaction

Representatives of health care facilities inevitably have many priorities. They usually try to keep costs at a manageable level, market the establishments so people know about what they offer, and may solicit donations, especially if the organizations are not-for-profit entities, such as associated with religious denominations. Those duties are all important, but there is another priority that wasn't mentioned: Patient satisfaction. Healthcare managers can do several things to monitor and improve how happy people are with the services provided.

Patient Shadowing

Patient shadowing involves observing patients and their families as they move through different stages of their health care experiences. Common goals include reducing costs, boosting the overall quality of care, and becoming more aware of the challenges patients and their loved ones face as they spend time at health care facilities. Patient shadowing may also allow health care administrators to spot patterns that reveal shortcomings and then train staff members to overcome them.

Surveys

Patient surveys can also be good indicators of how a health care facility is doing. Ideally, surveys should be designed to obtain as much information as possible while striving for efficiency. After all, many people don't like to fill out surveys unless they have had very good or very bad experiences that they deem worth discussing.

To deal with that reality appropriately, some heath care service managers offer incentives to make people more willing to give their feedback. For example, in exchange for filling out a survey, a person may get entered into a drawing for a $500 gift card or be told they have a one in 10 chance of getting a free dinner at a local restaurant.

Patient-Oriented Educational Opportunities

Statistics about patient experiences in health care indicate that chronic conditions are some of the most expensive medical concerns for patients and their care teams. With that in mind, some forward-thinking health care leaders organize ways to educate patients about how to get more involved in strategies for managing their ailments.

The topics for such educational events could range from heart-healthy recipes to techniques that people with arthritis can use to stay active and physically fit.

If those initiatives go well, it enables patients to potentially not have to go to as many health care appointments because they're healthier overall. As a result, health care workers are subjected to less strain and stress.

Targeted Campaigns to Boost Efficiency

If you think about the last time you visited the hospital for an evaluation or treatment, there's a good chance it wasn't a quick stop. Almost inevitably, patients have to prepare themselves to spend hours in waiting rooms and may even be subjected to incorrect diagnoses that make them even more delayed.

However, there are several things associated with improving efficiency in health care settings. To get an overview of many of them, check out this IG link. As you'll see from the details of the infographic, continuing education, human resources, communication, and record keeping are all things that help make health care facilities more efficient.

It's also important for senior members of hospital staff to hire well-educated health care administration personnel to keep everything running smoothly. Fortunately for people interested in that career path, it's easy to receive education in a non-traditional way by pursuing a University of Arizona online course. The Master of Public Health internet-based course has several concentrations, including Health Services Administration and Health Promotion.

Although it's smart for health care administrators to take a customized approach to making patients more satisfied, the areas and methods discussed above can be good starting points for experts who want to make positive and noticeable differences. It could arguably be said that an essential element is a desire to change for the better.