By Sarianne Gruber
Twitter: @subtleimpact
Press Ganey is a leading provider of patient experience measurement, performance analytics and strategic advisory solutions for healthcare organizations. Located in Boston, Massachusetts and backed with 30 years in the industry, Press Ganey is a pioneer and thought leader in patient experience measurement and performance improvement solutions. In their latest report, Competing on Patient-Driven Value, The New Health Care Marketplace, released in March 2015, Press Ganey defines key strategies for healthcare organizations to compete in today’s changing healthcare environment.
How can hospitals and health systems prepare to compete on experiences and outcomes that matter to patients in order to succeed in today’s changing health care environment? Based on recent research conducted by Press Ganey, to be competitive there are key focus areas:
- Why the need for data that quantifies performance from the patients’ perspective?
- What outcome should be measures to better understand the patient as a consumer and how will their needs are to be met?
- How to evaluate patient- centered engagement from the provider side and how successfully engaged are physicians, nurses and other staff to meeting care goals for the patients?
- Why is transparency of performance data important?
Marketing Basics: Competition
It is competition that drives the value of a product. Press Ganey analyzed data from their nationally representative inpatient database to prove this concept. Their results demonstrated that patients who have multiple care options are more likely to rate their choice more favorably than when their options are limited due to lack of competition. To test hypotheses and drive change for an organization, there is a need for data. Press Ganey recommends “the more data organizations are able to collect around outcomes of interest to patients, the more they are able to draw meaningful conclusions that are compelling for personnel who are being asked to improve.” The best way to get patient feedback is census-based surveying; a census is more than 85% of your desired patient population. This may require building a patient database of names, addresses and a very important piece of data is an e-mail address.
Measure What Matters: Care Experience
Press Ganey claims “overall care experience has multiple dimensions based on the degree to which their unique individual needs are being met and their suffering is being reduced”. Valuable information is learned about patient care experience from asking questions such as:
- Was the appointment scheduling process straightforward and easy?
- Did the patient receive all the information needed to make informed choices?
- Did the nurses and doctors communicate openly and in a compassionate manner?
- Was the clinical staff responsive to the concerns of the patient and family?
- Did the health care team work together to coordinate care?
An impressive Press Ganey study with patient experience data mapped to the National Database of Nursing Quality Indicators revealed that nursing-sensitive measures were positively correlated with safety outcomes -pressure ulcers, falls and central –line-associated blood stream infections. These results are the impetus for organizations to improve patient experience with internal provider care studies that used to bench mark patient satisfaction and clinical outcomes.
Collaborative Care: Patient Loyalty
Press Ganey advocates health care providers working “together to deliver compassionate, connected care”. And “the process begins with measuring how engaged physicians, nurses and other staff are with the organizations’ goals and the degree to which they are communicating and collaborating in the care they deliver”. Based on Press Ganey’s evaluation of inpatient loyalty found that the survey item most associated with recommending a hospital was “How well the staff worked together to care for you”. The findings indicate that care coordination is an essential factor in the patient care experience.
Engagement and Accountability: Data Transparency
There is power in transparency of performance data. Press Ganey claims to “retain existing patients and grow market share, providers should collect, display and improve value metrics beyond federally mandated standards”. How best to fuel data for insights:
- Advanced analytics tools to better understand patient needs, improve outcomes and unlock solutions.
- Incentivize providers based on their performance patient care outcomes with transparency channels; encourage competition based on value.
- Team-based care models to foster better communication, exchange of information, better decision making for the patient’s health.
To read the complete paper published by Press Ganey click on Competing on Patient-Driven Value, The New Health Care Marketplace to receive a download of the report.