mommyjenlin

Or, the dangers of viewing the customer-patient experience management process, thinking you know it all, it's easy to do, or only use patient satisfaction survey results. And from the questions I get from healthcare professionals around the country, it became very clear that a key element is missing from most efforts at improving the patient experience. Healthcare providers, aka hospitals for the most part, are not doing the required quantitative and qualitative market research on patient experience, attitudes, behaviors and expectations in their market place. They are assuming that because they read an article, go to a seminar that they know it all. They are only using patient satisfaction survey data, lean six sigma results and their previous quality improvement efforts. Few are actually talking to patients. Had you been conducting market research on your customers-patients in the experience management process outside of  internal patient interactions, you would  be much be...

Revenue in hospitals, clinics and physician offices are down. Payers earnings are up because of lack of healthcare utilization. They are spending less. Looming Medicare cuts. Slow pay or no pay from Medicaid programs across the country. Increased self-pays. Lowered insurance reimbursements. And of Congress doesn't act on increase the ability of the Treasury to raise the debt limit, "you haven't seen nothing yet". Healthcare is not a discretionary purchase . There is little if any differentiation between medical providers. With so many individuals out of work, consumer confidence eroding and wage earners fearful of losing jobs, healthcare, whether doctors visits, medication, hospitalizations or insurance purchases, are the last thing on peoples' minds. What is a healthcare provider to do? We all know the drill, cut costs, lay-off staff , hiring freeze, decrease marketing. etc. All retrenchment strategies to "weather the storm." In most cases necessary ste...

Or, the dangers of only viewing the customer-patient experience management as only the patient encounter. An Intuit survey, "Healthcare consumers want online control "- HealthcareFinanceNews.com, March 3, 2011, indicates overwhelming support by the general public for more control over their healthcare via online activities. They want healthcare providers including physicians, to be accessible online. They want to pay their bills online, communicate with the provider, request appointments and get lab results. A clearly demonstrated experience need and expectation of consumers, that except for a few isolated healthcare organizations, is generally lacking among healthcare providers. Had you been conducting market research on your customers-patients in the experience management process outside of the patient interaction, you would have understood that expectation and need. But unfortunately, most customer-patient experience management programs in healthcare providers are focused...

So why are you not talking to your customers-patients in experience management? As I look across the changing healthcare landscape, there is a movement gaining momentum to improve the patient and customer experience. Case studies and published articles are appearing in healthcare on Customer Experience Management (CEM). And don't get me wrong, wonderful improvements are being made. But when I delve into these improvement activities, one common denominator is missing and it concerns me. If you are engaged in the CEM process correctly, that means you are talking to and listening to your customers or patients. Healthcare providers, such as MD Anderson as well as others, are actively pursuing customer and patient engagement that includes an intense and focused effort to actively talk and listen to their customers and patients. But unfortunately, they are far and few between. Are you using only one means of gathering customer or patient experience intelligence? There is no doubt tha...

With the rapid evolution of healthcare from a provider-dominated and directed industry, to a consumer- driven industry is forcing changes in how we market and do business. Being responsive, delivering an exceptional and consistent customer experience from first contact through evaluation to use and post purchase, meeting individual expectations and needs is never easy. But as many successful healthcare companies will attest, these are no longer nice to have business requirements, but got to have requirements in order to survive. Treating patients is at the heart of all that you do. Doesn't matter if it's a hospital, long-term care facility, medical device manufacturer, pharmaceutical manufacturer or physician. In one way or another we are seen sometimes as heroes, other times as negligent fools and most of the time as just okay along the treatment path by our consumers. So why then don't we make our customers, who become patients, staff, volunteers and others our heroes? I...

I have been thinking about this topic for awhile now. And it does fit into what I have been writing about in Customer Experience Management . Hospital and other healthcare leadership seem to be struggling with the concept of an empowered, informed healthcare consumer who is making active decisions regarding treatment and care, instead of relying on the provider of care making the decisions. This is leading to any number of hospitals and others advertising outcomes, satisfaction rates, awards for care, no wait ERs and other self proclaimed measures and for example, using web site clocks that provide real-time ER wait times, etc. Some innovative hospitals have even been cleaver in their ER advertising and other communication channels allowing customers to text a message and get the wait time back. Some ads make claims of being the number one in treatment because of the volume of cases. Some support the brand and brand promise very clearly. Others leave much to be desired. M...

With the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), impetus was created to drive providers to create Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs). Interesting in that the ACO model was left open. That is, patients can move outside of their ACO home for service and care. Unlike Health Maintenance Organizations (HMOs) where care was restricted to in-network providers, planners were afraid of the backlash that would occur if they created a closed-model HMO style, ACO model for Medicare beneficiaries. Studies suggest that up to 1/4 of beneficiaries enrolled in ACOs would not stay within the ACO network and would need incentives to do so. That is a big out-of-network churn rate and too expensive to the ACO. So what is a healthcare provider to do? 1. Make sure that you have a Customer Experience Management Program place. You need to be close to your members by understanding their current needs and how their needs change over time. This is consumer-directed healthcare not provider-directe...

For several weeks now, I have been blogging about Customer Experience Management Applied to Healthcare . The reaction and comments have been most interesting from around the world. Many have come from physicians, CEOs of hospitals, Consultants, Directors, Managers, line-staff and coordinators. The countries of origin for the comments include not only the United States, but Belgium, England, France, China, Russia and India to name a few. Several have asked for the materials offered up to help them internally to start or move forward their companies CEM process. Some major observations that can be drawn from the comments and discussions. First, is that leadership across many healthcare industry channels are struggling with the transition of the healthcare marketplace from a provider-dominated, decision-making enterprise, to a consumer-directed, consumer-controlled healthcare system. The consumer has slowly and most assuredly been taking a more active role in healthcare treatment de...

CMS has proposed that 30 percent of a healthcare providers quality incentive payment be based on patient experience. Using the HCAHPS patient satisfaction data as the experience measure, hospitals, associations, satisfaction vendors have generally come out opposed for a variety of reasons, some valid, some just nonsense. This is where Customer Experience Management (CEM)applied to healthcare comes in. However, and let me be clear about this, CEM is more than just looking at your patient satisfaction scores. Satisfaction data can be important in pointing out areas of needed experience improvement, but it is just one data source. What you really need to do is talk to your customers. That's right, talk to your customers with one caveat. Do not talk to your customers until you have analyzed your satisfaction data. If you haven't analyzed your satisfaction data please see my book How to Use Patient Satisfaction Data to Improve Healthcare Quality . Do not talk to your customers unt...

Before we go much further, I would like to make a correction in terminology. In an interesting discussion on LinkedIn, a physician pointed out that Experience Management is applicable to physicians as well. I had assumed that individuals understood via earlier posts. My mistake. Using the word patient places models and systems in boxes in which we tend to forget, that this is applicable across all customer segments. Going forward I will no longer write about Patient Experience Management, but about Customer Experience Management (CEM) applied to healthcare.   The time has come to see people as they really are, whether they be doctors, insurance companies, individual, donors, patients etc., as individual customers with experiences that we need to understand like never before to improve quality and reduce cost. To quote Paul Harvey..."Now for the rest of the story"..... Customer Experience Management is understanding your customer and their experiences so thoroughly, that you ...

There are any number of reasons for beginning the Experience Management movement. Many of my readers have more or less begun some type of Customer Experience Management (CEM) or Patient Experience Management (PEM) process. So this post is really for those who still need some prodding in the hospital and health system segment of the healthcare industry and most specialty pharmacies to a large extent. Consumer Choice of Provider is Based in Experience In a McKinsey study published in November 2007, McKinsey Quarterly -A Better Hospital Experience , they found that the majority of 2,000 commercial insurance and Medicare patients surveyed would change hospitals to receive a better experience. It was also shown that only 20% of a patients choice is based on the clinical care experience or reputation, 41% is on the nonclinical experience while the remaining 39% is based on doctors recommendation. The most surprising finding, was that of the 100 physicians also surveyed, that they are ...

Happy New Year everyone. Welcome to 2011 and a new decade! There is an increasing amount of activity in what healthcare organizations are calling Patient Experience Management (PEM). Patient Experience Management is not a new concept. In reality, it is Customer Experience Management partially applied to healthcare. Customer Experience Management (CEM) first appeared 13 years ago in an article published by the Harvard Business Review authored by Pine and Gilmore. The concept proposes that by managing the entirety of the customer experience from first contact to purchase or use, that you can move a customer from satisfied to loyal and then from loyal to brand advocate by actively managing the experience. It is based on thoroughly understanding the customer. Essentially end-to-end management of the chain of events that an individual experiences . Since that time CEM has grown and evolved to became an important business requirement. This is a critically important topic for healthcare....