According to patient care surveys done in recent years, the majority of Americans are satisfied with the services they receive when they take a trip to their doctor's office. Almost 90% of people report being happy about the way their last doctor's visit went.
But even with that in mind, there are still so many ways in which healthcare facilities can improve the quality of care that they provide. If you're in charge of running one of these facilities, you should make improving patient care a top priority at all times.
Here are seven things that you can do to make your healthcare facility more patient-centered so that people love the services you provide.
1. Make Your Healthcare Facility as Accessible as Possible
People are going to begin judging your healthcare facility before they even set foot inside of it. They're going to base their judgments on things like:
- How easy it is (or isn't!) to find parking in your parking lot
- What it takes for them to get inside your building
- How challenging it is to find your office once they're in your building
It won't matter how great your staff is when it comes to caring for patients. If patients aren't able to access your facility with ease, it's going to come back to bite you.
2. Streamline Your Healthcare Facility's Check-In and Check-Out Procedures
Once people are able to make their way inside your healthcare facility, they shouldn't have to stand at the front door and wonder what to do next. You should have a streamlined check-in process that helps them to check themselves in and get settled.
You should also have a streamlined check-out process that helps them on their way out of your facility. These might seem like small things, but they're some of the top areas to improve for patient care at most healthcare facilities.
3. Limit Your Healthcare Facility's Wait Times as Much as You Can
For most people, there are few things more frustrating than hustling down to a doctor's office for an appointment, showing up on time for it, and then waiting for an extended period of time to be seen. It makes most people want to rip their hair out!
It's going to be hard for the staff at your healthcare facility to go about caring for a patient if they're feeling frustrated about having to endure a long wait. They might not do a good job of communicating with your staff, which can in turn make it difficult for your staff to care for them.
It's why you should aim to improve patient care by cutting down on your facility's wait times. Do your absolute best to limit the amount of time people have to spend sitting out in your waiting room.
4. Maintain Constant Communication With Those Visiting Your Healthcare Facility
From the second a person walks into your healthcare facility to the moment they walk out of it, you should be communicating with them at all times. This includes:
- Greeting them when they walk through your front door and getting them checked in
- Letting them know approximately how long they'll have to wait to see someone from your staff
- Speaking with them at length about why they're visiting you
- Listening closely to whatever problems they might be having and figuring out solutions for them
- Walking them through any questions and/or concerns they might have about your billing procedures (more on this later!)
5. Encourage Your Healthcare Facility's Staff to Communicate More Effectively
In addition to communicating with your patients, you should also encourage all those staff members who work in your healthcare facility to communicate with one another. It takes a team of receptionists, nurses, doctors, and more communicating to run a successful facility.
Your patients shouldn't have to explain the reason for their visit over and over (and over!) again to each one of your staff members. Instead, your staff members should talk among themselves while caring for patients to improve quality of care.
6. Provide People With Informative Printouts as They Leave Your Healthcare Facility
When people walk out of a healthcare facility, their heads are often spinning. They get hit with so much information at one time that they have trouble processing it all. They're not always 100% clear on what exactly they need to do next.
You should help patients get around this by providing them with informative printouts that let them know what steps to take next. These printouts should feature all the important information that they need to know following their visit.
This will cut down on any confusion patients might feel. They'll be more well-informed and will have printouts to refer back to in the coming days, weeks, and months.
7. Create an Easy-to-Understand Billing System for Your Healthcare Facility
At some point following a patient's visit to your healthcare facility, you'll need to send them a bill. You should invest in top billing software that is designed to make this part of the process easier.
With the right software, you won't have to worry about your healthcare facility billing patients the wrong amount. You also won't have to be as worried as you usually are about filing claims with health insurance providers since the software will do a lot of the work for you.
You Can Improve Your Healthcare Facility's Patient Care By Following These Steps
If you don't make your healthcare facility's patient care one of your biggest priorities, it's going to have an impact on your facility as a whole. People won't have the best perception of your facility, and it could cause many of them to take their business elsewhere.
It could also affect the type of talent that you're able to attract to your staff. Doctors and nurses want to provide the best patient care they can. But they won't be able to do it if you don't make it easy for them to focus on caring for patients.
Interested in finding other ways to improve patient care at your healthcare facility? Check out our blog to get some ideas on how to do it. We have a wide variety of articles on the business of healthcare, medical technology, and health insurance.
