As most hospital executives will acknowledge, operating margins are thin. Surprisingly, many hospitals aspire to improve patient satisfaction scores by offering resort-like amenities. Spending on frills has been climbing across the hospitality industry since 2010 and is now at a record high. This might make perfect sense for hotels—but with hospitals’ patient care costs already spiraling out of control, is this really the model they want to follow?
Unsurprisingly, what patients actually care about is…well…getting great care. Focusing on resort-quality hospital stays increases hospital costs, and diverts focus from the quality care that patients want and need.
The article suggests an emphasis on those who spend more time than any other hospital employee: nurses. Survey data suggests nurse interaction is a significant predictor of patient satisfaction. Nurses spend more time with patients than any other hospital staff. So it’s no surprise that patient interactions with nurses are among the strongest predictors of HCAHPS scores.
Focusing on the caregiver is certainly wisdom. But hospitals must also consider ways to empower caregivers and clinicians with the tools and resources to help them increase the quality of their care in order to drive better patient health outcomes and in turn higher satisfaction with care.
At AristaMD, we’ve found positive impacts on both patient satisfaction and patient outcomes when clinicians were equipped with clinical guidelines and specialist eConsults. AristaMD’s eConsult Platform provides solutions to empower primary care providers with clinical workup checklists and the ability to conduct electronic consults. The solution has proven to deliver cost-effective, timely access to specialty care through eConsults, significantly reducing the need for face-to-face visits. In addition, hospital readmissions have decreased by up to 30% of admissions and 17.1% of readmissions with the use of eConsults. It’s telehealth innovations like eConsults, that have contributed to improvements in patient satisfaction not increased hospital frills.
Request a Demo!
How telehealth implementation enabled a primary care group to meet patients’ health needs
Maintaining continuity of care, and managing patients with chronic diseases, has proven difficult during the COVID-19 pandemic. Many providers and health system resources are being directed toward the pandemic, while fear of exposure to the virus has led to many patients with chronic and comorbid conditions avoiding care.
These patients need proactive care management now more than ever. Patients with chronic diseases will be more likely to experience acute care crises as a result of not receiving necessary treatment and care maintenance. Emergency departments, far from ideal points of care in the best of times, are now impacted with coronavirus patients, presenting a real risk to non-coronavirus patients who may be admitted down the line as a result of forgoing care.
To avert care crises and to ensure better continuity of care for our patients who need it most, Primary Medical Group, the primary care organization of which I am both President/COO and a physician, quickly adopted a telehealth platform, which we have been leveraging since early March.
With any major shift in how we provide care to our patients, it’s expected that there will be hiccups and speed bumps as both patients and providers adapt to the change. We have found the transition to focusing on telehealth during the COVID-19 pandemic to be surprisingly smooth, with both patients and providers expressing satisfaction with our new telehealth capabilities.