Summary: Improving Patient Satisfaction

Words: 852
Pages: 4

In the midst of discomfort and pain, there’s a sigh of relief upon entering a medical facility, knowing that attention is in sight. Yet, all too often, patients find immediacy of care out of reach. The Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services reports that the national average ER wait time was 28 minutes in 2013. Patients with broken bones waited 60 minutes on average before receiving pain meds. According to Hospitals & Health Networks Magazine, patients across the country still wait about 22 minutes in the doctor’s office. Patient wait times not only affect satisfaction, they impact nearly every aspect of how a patient views their experience, including their perception of the quality of their care. Due to recent changes in the healthcare …show more content…
According to a report for Press Ganey, a leading healthcare industry research firm, entitled, “Looking to Improve Financial Results? Start by Listening to Patients,” increased satisfaction leads to quantifiable ROI. For a hospital with annual revenues of $120 million, improving patient satisfaction generates an estimated $2.2 million to $5.4 million in additional revenue every year due to improvements in patient loyalty, enhanced reputation, as well as fewer risk management episodes (malpractice claims). The same logic applies to urgent care clinics and other facilities. Furthermore, putting the patient at the center of care forces an institution to identify and address underlying operational …show more content…
Hospitals have tremendous incentives to try to understand where and why patients are getting hung up on the path from triage to admission or discharge. For example, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality reports in 2011, that because of ER crowding, often due to patient flow problems, there are nearly 500,000 ambulances diversions to a different hospital each year and numerous walkouts, each of which represent significant lost revenue for hospitals.
Finances aside, lengthy wait times also have a negative impact on patient safety, especially in Emergency Rooms. In a New England Journal of Medicine Perspective Piece, entitled, “The Waits that Matter,” Dr. John Maa writes, “Those of us who have dedicated our careers to healthcare must confront the fact that our inability (or, more likely, unwillingness) to reduce the waits and delays that bedevil emergency care is harming and even killing our patients.” The first step to reducing these delays is to understand