Becker's Clinical Quality & Infection Control

37 PATIENT EXPERIENCE 37 To Target Patient Experience Improvement Efforts, Get the Patient Involved By Heather Punke H ospitals and health systems are laser-focused on improving patient experience, to the point of disaggre- gating HCAHPS scores and tying providers' individual financial incentives to them — to the dismay of CMS officials. But there is a better way to target patient experience improvement that focuses less on physician behavior and more on patients' actual wants and needs. Christina Dempsey, MSN, RN, is Press Ganey's CNO. She has been a nurse for more than 30 years and took on her current role in late 2012. Ms. Dempsey says hospitals do need to seg- ment HCAHPS and other patient survey data, but instead of attaching scores to an individual physician's financial bonuses, hospitals should boil the data down to specific patient popu- lations, because patients have different needs and wants depending on their condition. From there, hospitals can draw out more nuanced findings to apply to certain groups of patients. "We can segment groups of patients to understand their specific needs, which may or may not be different" from the patient population as a whole, she says. "It's about understanding your specific patient popula- tion and what their needs are. Intuitively, as a nurse, we've known that all along, but now we can actually demonstrate that with data." For instance, chronic heart failure patients, when compared to other patient cohorts, tend to need more information about what to do aer discharge to stay healthy and avoid readmission. Carving out time for these patients prior to discharge to give them ample time to understand their post-discharge treatment plan can improve not only their outcomes but also their HCAHPS scores for discharge information, thus improving the hospital's overall patient experience scores. Hospitals are still "on the journey…to maximizing their data capabilities" when it comes to HCAHPS scores, Ms. Dempsey says. While those data mining systems are developing, there is a low-tech option for hospitals looking to target their patient experience improvement efforts — a patient/ family advisory council. As the name suggests, PFACs bring together former patients with hospital staff so officials can get feedback straight from the source. In addition to the patients and families in atten- dance, leaders from the C-suite typically attend council meetings, as well as staff from the hos- pital's patient experience office. When leaders attend the meetings, it "speaks to the patients… that leadership of the organization really cares about what they think," Ms. Dempsey says. Ms. Dempsey's advocacy for PFACs partly stems from a personal experience as part of one of these groups that le a lasting impression. "I had a less-than-wonderful experience when I was a patient in a hospital," she says. She ended up being invited to that hospital's PFAC, where she explained her situation. "Before I le, they were developing an action plan. at meant, No. 1, they cared about what I thought, and, No. 2, they were going to act on what I said." Experiences like that one, made possible by a PFAC, drive loyalty and word-of-mouth marketing, Ms. Dempsey says, while also allowing the hospital to hear straight from patients about what they want from their hospital experience. Blending data analysis and real human feed- back can create the perfect cocktail focusing improvement efforts more intensely on what actually matters to the patient, and therefore hopefully not only improve patient experi- ence but also reduce suffering. n Ineffective Receptionists Linked With Lower Patient Satisfaction By Brian Zimmerman W hen receptionists fail to drive conversations with patients forward or prematurely end calls before confirming details on matters like future ap- pointments, a correlated dip in patient satisfaction occurs, according to a new study published in British Journal of General Practice. For the study, researchers analyzed 447 incoming calls from patients at three general practices in England. The analysis revealed that practices where the burden of pushing the conversation forward was commonly placed on the patient received lower scores on patient satisfaction surveys. The researchers determined that the primary difference between effective receptionists and ineffective reception- ists was the ability to offer an alternative course of action when a patient's request could not be met. The authors concluded, "The study has implications for training receptionists. Key 'trainables' are to confirm appointment details or next actions at the end of calls and offer alternative courses of action if patients' initial request cannot be met." n "It's about understanding your specific patient population and what their needs are." — Christina Dempsey, MSN, RN

• Cover