Engage!

It wasn’t that long ago that teachers spent hours delivering lesson plans using what, then, was a creative new tool - the overhead projector.  However, what seemed like a good idea at the time has since fallen out of favor for a lot of reasons.

It’s been 12 years since the first chief patient experience officer (CXO) was hired. That was 2007 when Cleveland Clinic took the bold step to create the new position on the hospital’s executive team, along with forming a new department – the Office of Patient Experience.

Every hospital aspires to provide a safe environment for patients and employees. And most do, according to Leapfrog’s most recent survey. Nearly three-fourths of the 2,000-plus hospitals in the 2018 Leapfrog Hospital Survey met all nine components of Leapfrog’s never-event policy.

To say that technology has changed – is changing – how healthcare is delivered is an understatement. The Gartner Group estimates that worldwide, hospital IT spending will grow by 2.8 percent this year from its $3.7 trillion 2018 level.

Adequately preparing a hospital patient to transition to care at home is one of the most important deterrents to hospital readmissions. Alarmingly, HCAHPS scores for care transition and discharge planning often fall among the lowest of all HCAHPS ratings.

A Beryl Institute study of 2,000 consumers uncovered some insight into the importance patients put on their patient care experience. A staggering nine out of ten respondents said their patient experience is somewhat or very important to them, but why? They believe that a good experience contributes to their healing and health outcomes.

Original article posted on eclarifire.com.

Professionals in the healthcare field know a better patient experience directly translates to increased patient satisfaction scores and positive impact to hospital reimbursements.