Jim Higgins, Founder & CEO of Solutionreach

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As value-based care initiatives encourage health systems to raise patient satisfaction and outcomes, many executives wonder whether hiring a patient experience officer or patient relations officer makes sense. The short answer is likely yes.

However, there isn’t a one-size-fits-all role for patient experience. Each facility and patient population is unique. For example, a children’s hospital often supports parents who are caring for their children. Their communication needs and preferences will be different than those of, say, millennial men receiving care at an orthopedic practice.

Thus, each health system must examine its unique environment to maximize the impact of a patient experience officer or patient relations officer. Organizations should start by asking two key questions: Are patients leaving or are they at risk of leaving?  

Revenue is one good place to start to understand a facility’s patient attrition rate. Compare several years’ worth of revenue in year-by-year and month-by-month comparisons. Look at new patient visits versus existing patient visits. Are there slowing trends in revenue or existing patient visits? What about specific appointment types like recall, preventive care tests like colonoscopies or vaccinations like flu shots? A steady decline in any one of these areas might indicate that patients aren’t returning.

Anecdotal evidence can be helpful as well. Ask providers and staff whether they notice patients not returning. Staff should be encouraged to offer candid feedback about patient satisfaction as they see it. Front desk staff, medical assistants and nurses might have insights that simply can’t be seen at the executive level.

After determining the number of patients who have already left, divide that number by three. Since studies show around 

 leave due to a poor experience, it’s safe to assume this is the number of patients the organization has lost due to service issues and not because of insurance changes, a move or other factors.

In addition to determining how many patients have left, it’s equally important to evaluate whether more are at risk of leaving. That requires understanding patient satisfaction levels. Are patients generally satisfied with their experience? How do they feel about specific providers, services and staff? Some of the surveys used to support other initiatives — like Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems &mdash; can help track this, but they may not be enough.

Healthcare organizations should use additional surveys to gather more detailed information about why patients are unhappy. Short, concise surveys that address specific issues like appointment access or interactions with front desk staff can help identify problem areas.

Online patient reviews are also a great source of feedback. Look for “red flag” patterns, such as references to long wait times or poor customer service. Even positive reviews can have comments that indicate a patient experience problem.

For example, a three- or four-star review might talk about a great provider and then mention “but the wait time is really long.” Therefore, look at all reviews, not just the most negative ones.

For many organizations, hiring a patient experience officer to help ensure patient satisfaction and prevent turnover adds up in terms of dollars and cents. In part, that’s because studies have shown that more and more patients switch providers because of displeasure with the service and experience.

, for example, one in three patients thinking of changing providers said their decisions were due to service issues. Other patient satisfaction surveys indicate that patients are growing frustrated with inadequate practice logistics such as communication, scheduling and wait times. In fact, 

, the top complaint among patients is related to poor provider communication.

“Ultimately, the goal should be to ensure patients’ experiences are as good as their care, so they have no reason to leave,” said Kevin J. Pawl, M.S., senior director of patient access at 

. “When people talk about their healthcare experiences, they often will start with amazing life-changing care or how their health was positively impacted. But I want us to imagine a world where the second part of the story is the amazing service and overall experience.”

If one thing is clear about patient experience, it’s that it covers a lot of ground. After determining your organization’s key challenges, the ideal patient experience officer will be someone with a solid history of solving those specific challenges.

Generally, the role of a patient experience officer is to:

Collaborate with other departments to improve the patient experience

Establish and manage patient communication programs

Most postings for patient experience specialists ask for five to 10 years of experience in a healthcare setting. Previous experience or training in patient-facing roles or patient engagement activities is usually preferred. Although smaller practices and groups may have one person or even just a part-time person dedicated to the job, larger organizations often have a team of people engaged in building patient relationships.

Regardless, facilities can use these guidelines as a starting point for determining what makes sense for their patients and organization and begin developing job descriptions.

. You can follow him on Twitter: @higgs77

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Is a Patient Experience Officer Right for Your Organization?

Long wait times and boring paperwork. Two things that are nearly universally disliked. And yet, the vast majority of hospitals and large health systems are asking patients to spend lots of time on just that. For many patients, hours (or at least what feels like hours!) may be spent sitting around in waiting rooms—often juggling mounds of forms and clipboards while they do so. Unfortunately, these patients inevitably end up feeling stressed and disgruntled. Definitely not the experience they expect. And it is the hospital that ends up suffering the most&mdash;studies show that hospitals in the U.S. that provide a “superior” patient experience see net margins that are 

 than those that deliver an “average” customer experience.

So what can move the patient experience from average to superior? Unsurprisingly, a 

 found that the answer is usually closely tied to technology. In fact, according to the survey, patients are increasingly wanting to connect with their healthcare organizations via technology. Some of these advances have already gained widespread recognition and are increasingly seeing implementation. For instance,

One of the more recent digital shifts is related to the intake process. Virtually all patients—

 to be exact—say that they expect healthcare organizations to use digital tools when interacting with them, and this includes during the intake process.  

It makes sense. If we’re talking about one of the most mundane and cumbersome parts of a doctor visit, paperwork and registration definitely come to mind. In fact, the average doctor’s visit involves 

 of waiting for care and filling out paperwork. For large health systems or hospitals, these numbers are often even higher. In a society where we’re accustomed to streamlining processes through our computer or smart phone when interacting with pretty much any other business, it is easy to see why patients get frustrated when dealing with their healthcare organizations.   

Fortunately, using an online intake process comes with a bevy of benefits for both healthcare organizations and patients, making implementation a lot easier to manage. These benefits include things such as:

 is spent on paper? That doesn’t even include printing costs or postage if you mail forms ahead of time! These small costs really do add up. Using digital forms rather than paper not only saves trees—it saves wasted money for healthcare organizations. 

 Transferring all of the data written on a paper form into the computer inevitably leads to typos when copying things like social security numbers, addresses, and so on. In fact, experts estimate that 61% of claim denials are due to simple demographic or technical errors. These manual errors end up costing healthcare organizations more time and money.

 Successfully managing private patient information is a critical piece of healthcare management. Compliance, reputation, and overall success are at stake. Unfortunately, a large-scale 

 recently found that medical-related identity theft accounts for 43% of all identity theft reported in the U.S.―this is more than what is experienced in banking, finance, government, military, or the education sectors. Much of this fraud can be attributed to sloppy handling of paper medical files or outright theft of personal data. An online check-in process is a more secure way to manage private patient information.

 The check-in process is one of the major bottlenecks within any healthcare organization. Even one or two mishaps can throw off your schedule for the rest of the day. Automating the intake process helps expand that bottleneck to allow for a better patient flow. This is especially true for large organizations where many patients are seen each day.

 It is easy to get so busy running our healthcare organizations that many times we don't even notice how unpleasant it is to fill out paper forms for patients. Not only does it take up time in the waiting room (when they may already be feeling a bit anxious), but it also makes the experience that much more difficult for patients. Allowing patients to take care of this task before even leaving home is an incredible benefit for patients. 

Digital intake forms are the future of the check-in process. It helps healthcare organizations save time and money all while improving both security and the patient experience. What are you waiting for?

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Moving the patient experience from average to superior.