The Beryl Institute, a global community of practice, and premier thought leader on improving the patient experience in health care, defines the patient experience as “the sum of all interactions, shaped by an organization’s culture, that influence patient perceptions across the continuum of care.” Sue Ter Maat, in her amednews.com post of March 4, 2013, notes that experts in the area have said, “The patient experience — focusing on care coordination, communication with caregivers and staff responsiveness — is about protocols designed to reduce patient stress.”
The business case for creating the extraordinary patient experience is built on what Patrick A. Charmel and Susan B. Frampton, in Building the Case for Patient-Centered Care, describe as product differentiation in the age of health care consumerism. As out-of-pocket health care expenses increase, consumers seek comparable increases in value, which most people equate with service. As patients and families become more knowledgeable and more discriminating, their expectations of physicians, staff, and systems will rise. But, how to create real and perceived value, and, as good as you and your organization may already be, how to make you the provider of choice and make your organization the place of choice?
“If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” the old saying goes. However, the thoughtful reconsideration of existing systems, critical thinking rather than criticism, should be an ongoing activity, and is the first step in committing to culture change. The work has meaning beyond the task. How the pieces of the work fit together, the systems, evolve as the environment of the work changes. What are some of the key individual and organizational elements that can contribute to becoming the provider and place of choice?
Invest in personal professional development: commit to life-long learning, not just required CME courses. Take a look at the big ideas — enterprise risk management, the high reliability organization — that will stretch your thinking and inform that thoughtful reconsideration mentioned above. The physician is, after all, the leader of an enterprise that accepts, manages, and rejects risk daily. Patients and their families are counting on the physician and staff, no matter what the size of the practice, to be a highly reliable organization.
Invest in staff training — and it is an investment; time spent away from revenue-generating activities represents real opportunity costs — but staff engagement is an essential element in culture change. Shared understanding of and commitment to, the goal of making patients’ and families’ experience extraordinary, will generate enthusiasm for and ownership of the changes. An engaged staff is creative, making suggestions for modifications and improvements based on their first-hand experience of the work.
The physician who has hospital admission privileges is aligned with that organization. How does this alignment contribute to the extraordinary patient experience the physician and staff are creating? Invest the time in hospital activities — physician leadership is vital to developing and maintaining the same thoughtful ongoing review of existing systems and, in addition, establishing shared goals across disciplines and departments. As patients and families transition among health care providers and organizations, at every step, there is the opportunity to influence their experience, to reduce stress and anxiety, to reinforce the wisdom and desirability of returning to you and your team over and over again.
Does this approach take time and effort? It sure does. Becoming the provider and place of choice represents major and ongoing investment. It consumes valuable resources — human and financial. Is it worth it in the short and long run? What value can be placed on physician satisfaction and retention; on staff satisfaction and retention; on patient satisfaction leading to recruitment, referral, and retention?
This is the challenge and the opportunity: to stand out in an age of health care consumerism.
Carole A Lambert is Manager of Membership Review and Education, as well as its Residents Program director at Cooperative of American Physicians, Inc. (CAP).
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