The Challenge:

Providing a hospital chain detailed and actionable information about specific medical professionals and specific departments in individual hospitals and clinics.

The Client:

Large hospital chain

Situation:

The medical profession has large sweeping patient satisfaction programs and hospital ranking programs that are completed each year by extrapolating from small statistical samples to create industry and hospital generalizations. These reports are not timely, not actionable, and provide very little detailed information from the patient–doctor, or patient–nurse interaction. The client requested that Mindshare be brought in to provide a means for collecting and analyzing real-time patient feedback, at a detailed level, by patient, by department, and by health care professional. The health care industry is becoming more competitive, and leading health care companies are taking cues from the corporate world and using best practices from traditional service industries like lodging, hospitality, and entertainment.

Action:

Mindshare’s automated survey technology was installed to allow our client to get immediate daily input from their patients. Patients were invited to take a survey providing real-time feedback on their perception of the health care and the service they received. Specific information about departments and health care providers was targeted. Patients were invited to participate without any incentive other than to provide honest and timely feedback on their healthcare. The patients could take the survey by calling a toll free number or by visiting a website where they provided answers to specific questions. In addition to quantitative responses, patients were allowed to leave verbatim voice comments (or open-ended text comments) to record their feelings about the service and health care they received.

Results:

Our client was able to make immediate changes to poor operational practices. Administrators were able to address specific staff, service, and process issues immediately after the patient had the experience. For example, patient surveys provided information about...

Hospital administrators at all levels now have a real-time, accurate tool that allows them to immediately know how patients perceived their health care experience, and to take the necessary steps to improve.