Patient feedback: The key to advancing the patient experience

Patient feedback matters. Consider this fact: A hospital reputation consisting of good online reviews and positive provider reviews boast 1.2 USD million more in their revenue than those with a poor hospital reputation (1). How’s your healthcare organisation’s reputation management? Do you use a hospital feedback form to collect patient experience feedback and patient feedback on doctors? 

If not, you’re losing on the patient experience, which means you’re losing revenue unnecessarily. Read on to see how to change that.

How to use patient feedback to grow

Businesses across industries are rapidly employing the Voice of the Customer to listen to their customers by collecting feedback, analysing it, and acting to improve their offerings. The healthcare industry is no exception. 

Your patients want to know their opinions matter and potential patients will research to see if the patient experience matters to your organisation. Check out the Feedback economy 101 for 8 solid reasons to invest in patient experience feedback with a patient experience survey. 

Convinced? Let’s talk about how to start.

Outline the patient journey 

Potential patients will research your clinic’s or hospital’s reputation. If you have good reviews, they just might make an appointment. Potential patients will go from research, to interacting, to continual communication and engagement. 

First, consider all touchpoints where your organisation interacts with the patient. It’s essential to capture their experience with a patient feedback questionnaire at all relevant touchpoints. 

Touchpoints to consider:

• Booking appointment: Was it easy to book your appointment & find needed info?
• Check-in: How’s your waiting experience? 
• Checkup/Treatment: Did you receive the info and/or treatment you needed? And, how was the overall care of the healthcare professionals?
• Hospital stay: Patient feedback form for nurses & patient feedback on doctors, the room, the food
• Post-visit: Patient satisfaction and quality of care survey + Ask for public review

Create your survey(s)

Determine what you want to learn from your patient feedback form. Then, formulate the questions accordingly. 

Types of data you can use a survey to get:

• User experience on your website
• Patient experience during visit
• Patient satisfaction/loyalty
• Professionalism of the healthcare workers

Of course, you can also use a patient feedback questionnaire to gain information pre-visit. What’s the patient’s medical history, how’s their well-being, how did they find your healthcare organization, etc.?

Are you looking into patient satisfaction in healthcare, trying to get hospital feedback with a hospital feedback form, or wanting to create a patient experience survey?

Streamline communication

How to give 360 feedback forms to your patients? After determining which touchpoints you wish to use for patient engagement, proactively communicate with them. Automated emails, surveys, and text messages are a great way to connect, inform, and show you care. 

Consider utilising a patient surveying platform that will help you map out the customer journey, automate messages and surveys, provide analytics, and your online reputation management.

Study the results

As mentioned, a VoC survey platform can provide you with semantic analytics that lets you know how your patients feel about certain topics. You'll also be able monitor important metrics such as a Net Promoter Score or Customer Satisfaction Score across multiple touchpoints and locations. 

Set benchmarks to monitor patient satisfaction over time and locations. Dig into the patients’ emotions at different touchpoints. And then, see what their overall experience is like by asking them for reviews. 

Act to advance

McKinsey & Company reports that many healthcare organisations heavily invest in advancing the patient experience. However, they fail to achieve their objectives. Why? They don’t understand what matters most to their patients (2).

Don’t just send out surveys to placate your patients. Send them to listen. Analyse them to learn. Then, of course, use them to improve. 

There will be negative feedback, but you can use that to engage and advance. Studies show that when a patient’s negative feedback is addressed, patient satisfaction doubles. It increases to almost 99% (3). Don’t miss out by not acting.

P.S. Don't forget to showcase your ratings

As we’ve just said, you can make negative feedback work in your favour. Of course, positive feedback needs to be visible too. At the end of a survey, you can ask patients if they’re okay with publishing reviews to a public site like Google. 

Almost 70% of patients view positive patient reviews as “very” or “extremely” important for selecting a healthcare provider (3).

So, don’t miss out on the opportunity to increase your online ratings. 

We also recommend displaying your patient reviews directly on your website to build trust with future patients. Show the world you care about the patient experience. 

Start now

To sum up, patient feedback is the best way to improve the patient experience. Insights gleaned from your patients offer so much more though.

7 Reasons to invest in patient feedback

1. Improve your processes
2. Get pre-check in information
3. Properly assess the patient experience with analytics
4. Monitor touchpoints and locations for performance
5. Further patient engagement
6. Build your online presence
7. (And ultimately,) Grow your revenue

So, it's clear. The importance of patient feedback cannot be underestimated. Start listening to them now.

FAQS about patient feedback

How do healthcare providers address and implement changes based on negative feedback to improve patient satisfaction?

When you receive negative feedback, first, take a moment to understand the core issues highlighted by your patients. This might involve specific aspects of care, such as wait times or staff behaviour. Then, engage in a structured review process with your team to develop actionable plans. For example, if patients frequently cite long wait times, you might implement a new appointment scheduling system or enhance patient communication regarding wait expectations.

What are the best practices for healthcare organizations to encourage more patients to provide feedback without feeling pressured?

To encourage more patients to provide feedback without feeling pressured, create a culture of openness and show genuine appreciation for their input. Explain how their feedback contributes to concrete changes in care. Use surveys at different points of the care journey, such as after appointments or procedures, and make these surveys accessible through various means like in-office tablets, emails, or text messages. Emphasize anonymity and confidentiality to ensure patients feel safe sharing their honest opinions.

How does the integration of technology, such as patient portals or mobile apps, impact the quantity and quality of patient feedback received by healthcare providers?

Integrating technology like feedback management software fundamentally transforms the feedback process. These platforms offer patients a direct and convenient way to communicate their experiences in real-time, leading to richer, more detailed feedback. For healthcare providers, this means an increased volume of feedback that can be quickly analysed and acted upon. Furthermore, technology enables the automation of feedback requests after each patient interaction, ensuring a steady stream of insights into patient satisfaction and areas for improvement.

Sources:

1. Patient Engagement Hit Media: Online Reputation, Provider Reviews Tied to Hospital Revenue.
2. McKinsey & Company. Measuring the patient experience. Lessons from other industries.
3. Patientpop: The patient perspective 2019: Online reputation survey

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