The Growing Importance of Patient Surveys

Healthcare experts find it difficult to use Patient Feedback appropriately in improving the overall Patient Experience. But with the help of patient feedback tools, one of the most resourceful tools used in the healthcare industry, it's easy to capture Patient Feedback.

The imperative work starts after the post-collection of data, which consists of analyzing the results, understanding service gaps, and creating and implementing strategies to enhance efficiency.

Medical Group Management Association (MGMA) found that approximately 80% of the practices identified as “better performing” in the healthcare industry used patient surveys.

The Importance of Using Patient Surveys

Healthcare & Patient Surveys not only gauge Patient Feedback, but it helps in improving the overall performance and communication with the patients. Nowadays, the healthcare industry is more relying on Patient Survey App to evaluate their performance as a provider.

• Implementation of patient surveys can help hospitals understand patient requirements and fulfill them.
• It will help you understand what is essential to your patients which will further help you deliver quality services.
• If you care about your patient’s opinions, then it will give them a solid reason to keep you as their medical care professional and will ultimately lead to word-of-mouth recommendations.
• Patient Surveys can help you with the right data to improve patient satisfaction.

As per Accenture, “61% of respondents surveyed would switch health care providers for the ability to get an appointment quickly when needed.”

Make Use of the CG-CAHPS Survey

The CAHPS (Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems) survey is an industry-recognized survey that is globally known for measuring Patient Satisfaction and capturing patient insights. The survey is created by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality under the guidance of experts from the healthcare industry.

There are numerous versions available of the CAHPS survey depending upon the medical providers. CG-CAHPS, also known as, Clinician and Group Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems, is another version of the CAHPS survey, which is used to measure patient perceptions regarding care delivered in a hospital.

As per Press Ganey, a renowned company that is used for improving patient satisfaction, 5 essential questions from a CH-CAHPS survey should be included in surveys, which are the key pointers for determining Patient Satisfaction and Patient Loyalty.

1. How would you rate your confidence in the healthcare provider?
2. How well does the staff coordinate in providing exceptional care?
3. How much concern was shown from the healthcare providers’ end for your queries?
4. During your recent visit, how carefully did the healthcare provider hear your problems?
5. How would you like to rate the friendliness of the hospital?

Best Practices for Patient Surveys

Surveying your patients will help you understand their preferences and what they are looking for in a particular service, be it patient registration, doctor appointment, specific healthcare treatment, etc. It can help you enhance the overall healthcare processes.

It’s not necessary that patients will prefer making use of patient surveys; being a healthcare provider, you need to give a compelling reason to the respondents and ensure to include the best patient survey practices.

Let them know why you care about their opinion and how it can help you offer a seamless patient experience.

Best Practices for Patient Surveys

1. Distribute Surveys on Multiple Platforms
2. Distribute Survey at the Right Time (post interaction)
3. Make use of Open-Ended Questions and Close-Ended Questions
4. Keep your Surveys Short and Simple

1. Distribute Surveys on Multiple Platforms

There is always a question that comes to the mind of most healthcare providers which is: What should be the medium to collect surveys? Whether online or offline? To get a high response rate from your patients, it’s always recommended to distribute patient surveys on different platforms, be it online or offline. It can include social media networking sites, websites, emails, kiosks, etc.

For example, an inpatient post-discharge could be emailed a survey about his visit and experience with the hospital. On the other hand, an outpatient can be presented with a kiosk to take real-time feedback while he is at the healthcare center.

2. Distribute Survey at the Right Time (post interaction)

It’s another vital factor to capture patient feedback. Capturing it after every interaction will help you analyze what services can be improved. Patients might not be able to share useful insights if the surveys are sent to them after long intervals.

3. Make use of Open-Ended Questions and Close-Ended Questions

Open-ended questions are those questions where patients don’t have to write anything. They will get multiple-choice answer options which would be pre-populated. Close-ended questions are those questions where patients will get the opportunity to answer questions in a more descriptive format. Using both open-ended and close-ended questions will help you capture maximum patient insights.

4. Keep your Surveys Short and Simple

It has been observed that most of the time, patients hesitate to take surveys or leave them in between if they are too long. Try to keep them precise, short, and simple. Respect their time, and it will result in high response rates.

Conclusion

Nowadays, technology has become an integral part of most industries, and healthcare should not be left behind. To improve Patient Satisfaction, collecting feedback at a particular time plays an important role. If you want to provide incredible services to your patients, then making use of a real-time Patient Feedback System with tracking capabilities can be helpful. Making use of surveys will help you capture patient complaints, which should be addressed immediately to make them happy and satisfied.