It’s the goal of any hospital or health care provider to provide an exceptional level of care for their patients. So, it is understandable why so many of their business decisions are based on improving patient satisfaction in addition to patient outcomes.
But the truth is, improving patient satisfaction isn’t as difficult as you might think. For most healthcare facilities, simply providing good medical care in a timely manner and at a reasonable cost is enough to warrant positive patient satisfaction surveys. But if you want your hospital to achieve even higher patient satisfaction scores, then you may want to above and beyond what most patients expect. Here are five creative ways to increase patient satisfaction.
Improve the Hospital’s Atmosphere
By nature, a hospital’s atmosphere is anything other than relaxing. It is usually a sterile environment filled with harsh lighting and a lot of noise and foot traffic. From keeping the facility clean to upgrading the décor to create a warmer and more comfortable environment to adopting new strategies to help reduce commotion, there are a variety of ways to improve a hospital’s atmosphere that will translate into higher patient satisfaction scores.
Get Personal
Welcoming your patients and providing them in a more personalized way is an easy and highly effective way to boost both your patient’s mood and their overall satisfaction with your staff and facility. This is easily accomplished by addressing your patients by name and seeing to their unique needs. Having your staff wear nametags also helps a patient put names to faces, so they can feel more comfortable reaching out to your staff for assistance.
Spend Enough One-on-One Time with the Patient
When receiving medical attention, it can be easy for a patient to lose track of everything their treatment team is telling them. All too often, a patient is left feeling rushed and confused, and this can make the entire experience scarier than it needs to be. Spending just a little more one-on-one time with your patients and ensuring they fully understand what is happening every step of the way will allow them to feel more in control and this will greatly increase their satisfaction in your staff and facility.
Use Digital Media to Enhance the Patient Experience
Digital media is one of the most powerful ways you can improve patient satisfaction across all channels. From providing your patients with online access to their medical records via a patient portal to sharing valuable health information on social media to offering patients greater convenience and flexibility using telemedicine and other telehealth resources, technology helps make everything faster, more accessible, and easier to use.
Employ Digital Signage to Reduce Perceived Dwell Time
Patient wait time is often one of the biggest detractors on most patient satisfaction surveys, but unfortunately, waiting is a part of any doctor or hospital visit. As a result, it is up to the facility to find ways to reduce the patient’s perceived dwell time. This can be easily accomplished by installing digital signage and full color LCD monitors in those areas where your patients and visitors spend most of their time, such as in your waiting room, lobby, and cafeteria. Broadcasting entertaining and informative content on these screens will help reduce your patient’s perceived dwell time and help increase their overall satisfaction.
Why Patient Satisfaction is Important
Patient satisfaction is all-important to any healthcare facility or HCP office because it determines whether that patient will return in the future or seek their medical treatment elsewhere. Every hospital and medical office needs patients to stay open, and for most, repeat business is their bread and butter. Providing your patients with the best experience possible from start to finish begins by implementing the above five ways to increase patient satisfaction.
At Innovare Medical Media, we provide a range of services and products that are designed to help improve patient satisfaction. From custom-made LCD screens to mobile charging stations, we have the products you need to reduce your patients’ perceived dwell time, increase their comfort level, and lower their anxieties. Contact us today to learn more.