Do you run a healthcare facility? Are you looking for ways to make its operations more efficient? A healthcare facility’s core function is to cater to patients; therefore, you should focus on your patients. Give your patients the best healthcare experience, and the benefits and outcomes may surprise you. But you may be wondering, how can you enhance the customers' experience in your facility? Worry not; this article will discuss some patient-focused strategies you can adopt.
Consider doing the following:
1. Create A Sterile Environment
In general, hospitals must be entirely clean since they treat patients that may be vulnerable to infections. Most patients also feel safe when they get treated in a clean facility. Therefore, you need to practice hygiene.
Make it a habit to clean and disinfect all areas regularly, several times a day. Your doctors should also adopt hygiene practices, such as putting on surgical gloves to handle patients and changing them with every patient and use. The same applies to medical equipment like syringes; avoid re-using them.
Sterility does not only apply to the environment; it extends to the products and tools you utilize to treat your patients. They need to be of high quality and uncontaminated. You can only ensure this by sourcing them from reputable providers, such as Fagron Sterile Services.
With hygiene practices, you can gain the trust of your patients. As a result, more patients may seek your services.
2. Adopt Digital Systems
With the rise of digitization, there are innovations you can adopt as a healthcare facility to serve your patients better. Most patients dread the long waiting queues at the reception as they wait for the nurses to attend to them. Therefore, consider utilizing the services of medical virtual assistants, who can facilitate online appointment booking for patients from the comfort of their homes.
Alternatively, software applications can be used to allow the patients to fill in their information digitally through the hospital website. From this, the person responsible in the hospital will receive the information on their end, allowing for appropriate planning. Online filling systems eliminate paper use in collecting patient data once a patient visits the hospital. It also saves time and makes it easy to gather and share patient data.
Another strategy to adopt is to have online doctor consultations. With online consultations, patients don't have to come to the hospital. They may only require face-to-face consultation when necessary. This process can be beneficial if the patient is too busy to go to the hospital. It can also reduce the crowding of your facility.
The system could also allow the patients to fill in their information digitally through the hospital website. From this, the person responsible in the hospital will receive the information on their end, allowing for appropriate planning. Online filling systems eliminate paper use in collecting patient data once a patient visits the hospital. It also saves time and makes it easy to gather and share patient data.
Another strategy to adopt is to have online doctor consultations. With online consultations, patients don't have to come to the hospital. They may only require face-to-face consultation when necessary. This process can be beneficial if the patient is too busy to go to the hospital. It can also reduce the crowding of your facility.
3. Adopt Multiple Payment Systems
Payment is common practice with patients seeking treatment; they need to pay for your services. Just as they return the favor by paying, you also need to serve them by implementing seamless payment procedures.
Innovations have brought about several payment options; this is without forgetting insurance. Also, your patients may utilize different payment systems. Therefore, it would be best to accommodate most of the options available. For instance, you can adopt card swiping and cash payments. For universality, don't limit card swiping only to a given bank. Instead, adopt a card reader that accepts all cards despite the bank.
As for insurance, accept payments from the most common insurance companies in your area or those used by most patients.
Having multiple payment options provides convenience to your patients, allowing them a good healthcare experience.
4. Always Seek Feedback
All the strategies aim to meet your patients' needs; this makes them your guiding principle. They can only guide you by taking their feedback. You might implement the best patient-focused strategies from the books, but they won't mean anything if they don't satisfy your specific patients' needs.
Therefore, make it a habit to ask patients about their needs. You may inquire about the aspects of your facility they don't like, needs your hospital isn't meeting and other inefficiencies. If you're not sure how to make use of feedback, you can read this patient experience survey trend article for example, to find out exactly how to go about using surveys to your advantage. With this feedback, you can customize strategies that suit your patients instead of blindly implementing them.
5. Consolidate Service Stations
Any healthcare facility offers several services. In most cases, especially if you have a large facility, the service points are widespread. For instance, you may have a cardiology unit, dialysis unit, laboratory, washrooms, operating theatres, etc.
For a patient-focused facility, it would be best to group similar services to reduce the distance patients have to travel from one unit to another to seek care. You can have the cancer unit, chemotherapy area, and the oncologist's office next to each other. You may also have the reception, waiting area, emergency area, food court, and washrooms together on the ground floor.
Conclusion
This article has discussed easy patient-focused strategies you can adopt for your healthcare facility. You can consider implementing these tips for the better running of your hospital and enhanced customer experience.
The secret to getting the strategies right is identifying your patients' needs; seek their feedback to guide you.
