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How Can Clinicians Teach, Learn Provider Empathy, Compassion?

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Grounding provider empathy training in genuine feedback will help drive compassionate care.

 

In healthcare, it might be time to reconsider how to think about empathy. As more industry experts underscore the importance of compassionate care, developing new ways to train, and therefore look at, provider empathy will be key.

 

Data shows that empathy and compassion are two of the leading factors patients consider when evaluating their doctors.

A 2018 survey from HealthTap showed that 85 percent of patients value compassion in healthcare when ranking their doctors. Just as many value quality care and provider expertise.

Providers who deliver compassionate, patient-centered care tend to see better relationships with their patients, better adherence to treatments, and better outcomes. And even when outcomes suffer due to medical error or factors outside the provider’s control, empathy can go a long way in improving a patient’s perception of care.

 

Read more of this  incisive article by Sara Heath at:

https://patientengagementhit.com/news/how-can-clinicians-teach-learn-provider-empathy-compassion

 

 

 

Do satisfied patients and engaged staff impact on healthcare business profits?

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Medical profits

Well, according to an article recently published in Harvard Business Review, it would seem that they do… and very much to the positive.

 

https://hbr.org/2019/05/when-patient-experience-and-employee-engagement-both-improve-hospitals-ratings-and-profits-climb

 

When Patient Experience and Employee Engagement Both Improve, Hospitals’ Ratings and Profits Climb

Health care executives know that patient experience and workforce engagement are intertwined, but few providers integrate and analyze these data to really understand the connection. Management tends to take it on faith that improving patient experience and enhancing employee engagement are good ideas — but faith alone doesn’t always lead to appropriate prioritization if it isn’t accompanied by insight into how issues relate to bottom-line performance.

When organizations have invested in comprehensive data collection for a few years, they see a time-lapse view of their performance that demonstrates whether it is improving. Leading organizations are taking it a step further, leveraging the data to understand how improvement on patient experience and/or employee engagement correlates with broader organizational performance.

Our latest research shows that hospitals that improve over time in distinct HCAHPS survey measures of patient experience or employee engagement also see improvement in patients’ global ratings of their care.

Further, the data reveal that there can be a compounding effect when organizations improve in both experience and engagement measures.

What’s more, we found a pronounced association between improvement in overall hospital rating and financial performance: for every one-point increase in hospital rating we saw a 0.2% increase in net operating profit margin.

When we removed critical access hospitals from the data set, every one-point increase in hospital rating was associated with a 0.4% increase in profit margin. In this scenario, a five-point increase in hospital rating correlates with a two percent profit-margin increase.

 

Given the sweeping and unstoppable market forces exerting pressure on health systems and hospitals, evidence of the compounding effect of patient experience and employee engagement on business outcomes should command the attention of health care leaders. The follow-on imperative is to home in on the key structure and process elements that drive better performance in both domains.

 

 

2018 Patient Experience Consumer Study

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(Just released by The Beryl Institute)

Healthcare professionals have taken major steps to understand, measure, and improve the Patient & Family Experience. But do consumers really care about this?

The Beryl Institute’s inaugural consumer study explores consumers’ viewpoint on healthcare and the patient experience and how this fits into their broader set of expectations around health and healthcare delivery. The first of its kind global research, the study engaged 2,000 respondents from five countries representing four continents sharing insights from consumers of care on the patient experience – its importance, critical factors and value.

 

According to the research:

  • Consumers confirm patient experience extremely important to them overall
  • Patient experience is personal and connected to how people view their health outcomes overall
  • Consumers affirm human interactions most important to them in assessing patient experience, followed by processes and then place.
  • Of greatest importance to consumers is how they are connected with as human beings with a focus on listening, communicating clearly and being treated with dignity and respect
  • Consumers confirm they see experience as the integration of all they encounter in healthcare from quality and safety to service, cost and more
  • People easily recall their healthcare experiences, especially those positive in nature, and the top thing they do, for both positive and negative encounters, is tell others.
  • Patient Experience is significant to the healthcare decisions of consumers
  • Recommendations and referrals far outweigh everything else in making health decisions and choices.

 

http://www.theberylinstitute.org/?page=PXCONSUMERSTUDY

Effective Leadership in a Medical Practice

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A very incisive article on Medical Practice Leadership, discussing the various styles and challenges for business owners and directors.

Well worth taking a few minutes to read:

 

“Working with doctors who are becoming medical business owners, I find one of the greatest challenges they face is identifying where they fit within their own organisation. Going into private practice they find themselves suddenly thrust into a position of leadership as the director of the business. Yet at the same time they are working in the business, day-to-day, shoulder-to-shoulder with their clinical and administration team. Having an understanding of and applying effective leadership skills can be the key to a successful business.”

 

Full article by Hanya Oversby at:

https://hanyaoversby.com.au/thrust-into-leadership-the-private-practice-magazine/

 

Patient Experience: “The Waiting Room versus the Treatment Room.”

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Whilst researching for a medical conference presentation, I came across some interesting information regarding the causative issues behind complaints posted in online patient experience forums.

The study conducted by Vanguard Communications and published in the (U.S.) Journal of Medical Practice Management, essentially concluded that 96% of complaints faulted the “Customer Service” not the “Quality of Care”. 

“An analysis of nearly 35,000 online reviews of doctors nationwide has found that customer service – not physicians’ medical expertise and clinical skill – is the overwhelming reason patients complain about their healthcare experiences on the Internet.” 

“The study reveals that only 1 in 25 patients rating their healthcare providers with two stars or fewer is unhappy with his or her physical examination, diagnosis, treatment, surgery or health outcome.” 

“The other 96 percent of patient complaints cite poor communications, disorganization and excessive delays in seeing a physician as the cause for dissatisfaction.”

Complaint Factors

“Our study uncovered a torrent of patient allegations of doctors running behind schedule, excessive waiting time to see a provider, billing problems, indifferent staff, and doctors’ bedside manners. The nearly unanimous consensus is that in terms of impact on patient satisfaction, the waiting room trumps the exam room.”

 

The study’s author does make a valid point that online reviews of specific physicians or clinics don’t provide a scientific or fair sample upon which to draw conclusions and base decisions. Practices that aim to provide high standards of customer care generally employ their own direct feedback process to monitor satisfaction and improve performance.

The study was designed to gauge to what degree patients were focused on customer experience issues (which are systemically fixable) versus medical treatment.

As such, the evidence appears conclusive that problems patients are most likely to share online, overwhelmingly relate to the “Administrative” functions and interactions of medical practices. 

 

 

 

 

The State of Patient Experience 2017: A Return to Purpose

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The latest research study by the Beryl Institute reports some very encouraging trend findings.

According to the research:

  • Experience efforts are expanding and are now an integral part of the fabric of our healthcare efforts.
  • Patient experience remains a top priority with a focus on employee engagement now seen as a central driver in experience efforts.
  • Leadership and culture are now the significant motivators versus the historic focus on mandates and requirements, and there is a recognition of the impact that patient/family voice and caregiver engagement has on the work of healthcare.
  • Patient experience itself continues to establish presence with the role of patient experience leaders, experience team size and the use of a formal definition on the rise.
  • Patient experience is now being recognized as an integrated effort touching on much of what we do in healthcare and one that drives clear and measurable outcomes.

A copy of the full report can be downloaded at: http://www.theberylinstitute.org/?page=PXBenchmarking2017