Have You Assessed Your Reform Readiness? 6 Tips to Enhance Your Care Continuum

As patient satisfaction continues to become a focal point of how hospital performance is measured and reimbursed, reform readiness is crucial. With 32 million newly insured Americans looking for hospital networks and physicians under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, it is important to navigate patients to the proper point of care through streamlined coordination and align staff strategically to help manage the increased traffic and demand for services.  

As patient volumes increase, medical and nursing staff resources are at an alarming shortage to meet the care and communications needs of patients, while also attempting to maintain positive experiences that yield high satisfaction and optimal reimbursement. In fact, it is estimated that there will be a shortage of 63,000 physicians by 2015 alone.¹

Additionally, accountable care organizations are popping up around the country, and systems are faced with additional gaps in executing the new models — from member communications focused on patient education, outreach and management of chronic disease to access to primary care and follow-up communication to ensure compliance. Everywhere you turn, patients and physicians are faced with a web of communication touch points that are begging to be connected.

So how do hospitals who haven't yet tackled the ACO initiative take on more patients, with already bruised funding, an overworked staff, and yet increase the quality of care and customer service delivered? And how do established or forming ACOs prevent fragmented care and communications? Below are six tips to effectively engage patients throughout a streamlined care continuum, while also improving employee satisfaction.

Improve patient access

Patient access deficiencies often stem from gaps in business and operational procedures and capabilities. From front-office staff to technology systems, hospitals and physician groups aren't always equipped with the optimal tools, data or communication and service levels that yield a positive experience. Even if your hospital staff is delivering the highest quality medical care in your community, remember that consumers aren't always recommending based on the quality of medical staff. Most changes can cost little to no money, and may just be a matter of staff training.

Boost employee morale

With an already exceedingly stressful role, additive pressure can lead to serious and fast employee burnout. Before the hospital is able to implement new processes or ask the staff to change the way they deliver care and an experience, it's key to check in on their current state. After all, if caregivers feel under appreciated and exhausted, they are more likely to be unreceptive. To boost employee satisfaction, simple initiatives can be implemented to secure morale such as establishing a recognition program, developing a cohesive process for setting and communicating expectations, creating a people-centric workplace culture, and reinforcing a commitment to accountability.

Find an innovative approach to improvement through looking at other industries. Solving the complexities of healthcare is really no different than other companies outside of the healthcare industry faced with similar business challenges. For example, Starbucks focuses intensely on the "experience." The company started their company focused on the "experience," not just selling coffee. By doing so, they have been able to sell coffee at a premium price during a time of economic downturn.

Details matter

Disney teaches us to focus on the infinite attention to detail. Every detail that you can imagine in an experience will not be noticed by each person who comes into contact with your system, but the one person in a million who notices a well-thought-out and executed touch will remember and likely rank you higher in satisfaction and quality. If you have considered and implemented a solution to something patients and families don't even know they need, you have succeeded at focusing on detail.

Change perceptions

A recent study published in Psychological Science showcases what happens when you become desensitized to the obvious in your work environment. In short, when we are too close to something, often we can miss the obvious. Maybe that stained ceiling tile becomes less obvious to the eye, but it can jolt the patient's opinion about the quality of care they are receiving.² Also consider how missing the obvious can impact care delivery. A call-light could be missed due to the distracting environment that has desensitized caregivers. This doesn't mean the oversight is caused by human incompetency; it means staff is surrounded by blinking lights and beeping noises all day. They're too close; they're missing the obvious.

Changing perceptions is cost-efficient and is as easy as taking a step back, walking the hospital with fresh eyes, and imagining what you as a patient would perceive just by looking around or what you as a caregiver or administrator could do to refresh the working environment.

Over communicate with patients

Feeling "in the loop" can help patients feel more at ease. By explaining your role as a clinician in relation to others providing care, detailing the referral process and noting when a patient's question falls outside of your expertise, you're keeping patients in tune with what they need to know and making them more comfortable.³ Being that patients are ill, in a new environment and don't speak the jargon, they are at the most vulnerable state. Patients are often too scared or not comfortable enough to ask questions; by being forthright with information, you are educating them and helping them understand and become more responsible for their own care.

Follow-up

Direct and swift follow-up with patients, either post-discharge or release from the emergency department, is one of the most crucial tactics in managing patient populations, chronic disease and patient perceptions. While it may seem cumbersome, scaling patient populations by risk and acuity can help make the workload more feasible. Following up works to boost patient medication and instruction compliance, improve the post-discharge patient experience, manage care coordination and prevent unnecessary readmissions, all of which aides in improving patient satisfaction and quality care measures, and in turn shields reimbursements. One of the most valuable outcomes follow-up calls provide is the opportunity your organization has to gather qualitative comments and feedback about patients' stay experience.

Improving patient access, boosting morale, finding innovative improvements, changing perceptions, overly communicating and following-up consistently throughout your hospital, system or ACO can largely aid in-patient and employee satisfaction, engagement and perception. Empower your hospital to care for the care-giver and empower staff to think how they can innovatively do the best possible. Reform calls for reform. Have you assessed your readiness?

Footnotes:

¹ Association of American Medical Colleges, Addressing the Physician Shortage Under Reform, April 2011; https://www.aamc.org/newsroom/reporter/april11/184178/addressing_the_physician_shortage_under_reform.html

² The Huffington Post, The Really Scary Invisible Gorilla, Jan. 2013; http://www.huffingtonpost.com/wray-herbert/the-really-scary-invisibl_b_2574791.html

³ KevinMD.com, Guiding Patients Through Fragmented Health Care, May 2011; http://www.kevinmd.com/blog/2011/05/guiding-patients-fragmented-health-care.html

Nicole Nicoloff is vice president of market strategy and innovation at BerylHealth, a technology-based patient experience company. Previously, she served as the network director of exceptional patient experience and family experience at Community Health Network.

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