From morning lattes to online shopping experiences, consumers are all seeking the hyper-personalization they have come to expect. It is simply the world we live in, and the same rings true in healthcare. A personal touch and customized experience goes a long way to the modern healthcare consumer, especially in the private practice setting. Technology allows this customization to expand outside of the exam room and into highly sophisticated – and highly personalized – automated surveys for private practices.
Automated healthcare surveys for private practices don’t have to be robotic. In fact, they can be customized and unique to the practice and end user, matching the personalized touch of the private practice that patients expect. They can also offer private practices ways to enhance care and economics through measuring outcome-based care, creating cost containment, and improving customer perception.
Outcome-Based Care
Healthcare delivery trends are moving the focus of patient care toward a more outcome-based system. Outcome-based care makes providers more responsible for measuring the care provided against their patients’ health outcomes. This makes continuity of care an integral component of the total healthcare experience. It also poses challenges for private practices in tracking and measuring the patient’s experience and outcomes throughout the continuum. Automated healthcare surveys can be personalized per patient and their patient needs based on this continuum of care.
For example, if a patient that has diabetes is prescribed a treatment plan that includes exercise, a specific diet, and prescription medications, an automated survey can be customized for that patient to assess whether the patient has complied with his/her treatment plan. This data can be reported back to the private practice and then tied to outcomes at the patient’s follow-up visits. If the patient reported noncompliance with the treatment plan and did not have improved health outcomes, it is documented as to why. It also provides a point of education for the physician to understand barriers the patient might have to following the treatment plan as prescribed.
Cost Containment
Providing a high level of personalized healthcare can ultimately improve private practices’ bottom lines. One of the most accurate and effective ways of measuring quality care is a patient survey, as it captures patients’ experiences and their outcomes throughout the continuum of care. It can bring to light issues in:
- Delivery of patient care,
- Treatment planning,
- Patient compliance, and
- Operational issues.
All of these points on the continuum of patient care hold potential issues that can strain both the quality of healthcare delivery and private practices’ bottom lines. Automated healthcare surveys offer private practices a golden opportunity to catch these issues early, before they become deeply rooted and costly to the organization.
For example, an automated survey can isolate a private practice’s patients with a specific condition and an electronic survey can quickly be sent to these patients to assess their disease management. Are the patients coming into the practice to see their physician to be monitored and managed for their condition? Are they neglecting their yearly annual exam and blood work, which informs their prescription medications and treatment plan? Are they taking their prescription medications as directed? All of these answers will help the private practice assess if their approach to care – from scheduling to follow up and physician treatment planning – is most effective and achieving its desired outcomes.
Patient Perception
Perception really is everything, especially in our digital world where one negative patient experience turns into a rant on Facebook that is instantly shared with hundreds – if not thousands – of people. Private practices are all about personalized attention, and an automated healthcare survey can help private practices assess how they are viewed in their patients’ eyes. Just the act of asking patients to assess their experience conveys that the private practice cares about their opinions.
This is important because satisfied patients are good for business, as they are more likely to:
- Remain committed to the practice;
- Refer others to the practice;
- Post positive reviews online; and
- Publicly advertise their experiences.
Happy patients are the best PR that money can’t buy. Automated surveys offer an effective and resourceful way to maximize this opportunity.