Index - Major Sections
Home

**InHCc HMIS**

Site Map
Health Economic and Reform

Benefits

Discussion

Data and Data Analysis

Health Management

Product and Services
References
Team

_______________

Index - Same Level Subject

Patient Centric
Client Satisfaction
Continuity of Care
Specific Care
Nutrition
Infection Control
Chronic Care
 

Index - Child Subjects

Client Satisfaction

As was stated in the Introduction page

Healthcare: The easiest Service to Market and the hardest to Manage

Some of the benefits to the patient that are often quoted are:

• Shorter waiting times
• HCP has all personal and medical available immediately
• Continuous care
• Client is asked questions only once
• Safer medicine

However

Client perception. Will rate higher a doctor that gives more drugs…”the easy way out” ..”give me a pill and make me better”

The questions now becomes

• Is the patient satisfaction worth measuring?
• How can measured?
• What are we going to do with it...

To answer the first question above, one needs to take into consideration our first postulate...Healthcare is easy to market!. Scare the hell out of them and you can sell them anything or promise them that they will "be cured" if they would only take this drug or do this procedure...

Research has shown (really...no research...just surveys...i.e. Surveys are easy to take and even easier to manipulate) that the majority of clients will rate a Healthcare Professional (HCP) higher if the following:

• The more drugs a HCP prescribes
• If he is "nice"...i.e. has a good "bedside manner"...smiles a lot
• Speaks their language (in areas where there are multiple cultures)
• Talks as if he knows everything about everything (i.e. he has a answer and explanation for every question)
• Performed every test known to man
• Was given the latest "fad" medical procedure)
• Do not like being told that they have to take care of themselves..."give me a pill and make me better"...rather than..."you have to exercise more"

Almost never are the "real" factors of healthcare taken into consideration by the Client. Some examples are:

• Allocation of scare resources (i.e. was only evidence based medicine practiced)
• Measurement of clinical outcomes such as re-infection rate, number of days of recovery, readmission rates, etc
• Technical skill level of HCP (re-certification, contract hours of education, #of successful procedures performed.  

So does the healthcare organization really care about what the Client thinks? Sure they do...for the same reasons that General Motors cares about what their clients think...satisfied customers leads to increases in the bottom line of the profit statement, and it is the political correct thing to do...

The reason this data is rarely collected (but that is now slowly changing)...are that

• Organizations do not know how to answer the second question above...how do you measure Technical Quality
• It is expensive
• It cannot be manipulated
• They do not know how to answer the third question above...what do you do with it.
• The results may not be what the Organization wants to hear.

Client Care

Healthcare Professionals, when asked or even when not asked, will tell you that their job is to be everything to everybody...i.e. they are responsible for "the whole person", of "helping patients achieve their goals"...now is this a great industry to be in... an unlimited market where your customers can be convinced that they need any and every product you have and there is no way to evaluate the quality of your services and products...

WOW...I want to be in that Industry...

At some point, healthcare will have to be rationed. An individual can never get enough!

Benefits

Ok...now what are the real benefits...

• The ability to collect a large number of indicators
• The ability to collect these indicators cheaply by recording normal processes
• Unbiased
• Can not be manipulated (well to some extent!)
• Ability to more accurately rate quality of care
• Ability to provide Evidence based medicine
• Ability to detect problems sooner
• Provide safer medicine
• Better Client Profile ...give the right thing to the right person at the right time...(yeah...we are marketing...but it is more fun...we are actually saving lives)

But all of this requires that we ...Educated the patient to what healthcare is expected. Teaching instead of drugs

Now if this doesn't make the patient more satisfied, then we need to get new Clients :)

(see Quality of care)

Web Portal

Although it will be some time before may people have quick and easy access to Internet Services, having access is still a benefit that healthcare organizations can develop.

• Clients may access the web site or client web portal to get detail information about the services (availability, instructions, references, waiting time)
• Access to personal health data, lab results
• Ability to book appointments, review their own schedules, review personal data, and complete pre-visit forms.
• Access to Client records by authorized Healthcare professionals.

Links

• Patient Satisfaction with Health Care Critical Outcome or Trivial Pursit by Richard Kraviz, MD

Back to Top