Impact Patient Satisfaction with Process Redesign: Important Questions

Many early hospital strategies tried to impact patient satisfaction by focusing on “employee attitude adjustment.” While such strategies made headway in shifting the collective mindset from a provider-orientation to a customer orientation, we all learned that attitude adjustment is not enough. We need to retool care and service processes and focus on employee behavior adjustment. This requires attention to experience redesign, transformation and continuous improvement.

Retooling Care and Service Processes to Impact Patient
Satisfaction: Questions for Each Key Process

1. What are its intended outcomes?
   
   
2. How is it working now?
   
   
   • Can we define our current process in clear terms? Does everyone agree on what the process actually is?
   • What data do we have to tell us how this process is working?
   • Where are the main anxiety points in this process for patients and families?
   • Where are the snags in our process that affect the patient and family experience?
   • Where are the snags in our process that demoralize staff and deplete their energy?
   
   
3. How can we improve this process to enhance the patient experience?
   
   
   • What more do we need to know about the main anxiety points during this process for patients and families that would enable us to focus on high-impact improvements?
   • What more do we need to know about the main stress points for staff during this process, so that we focus on high-impact improvement?
   • Given customer needs and anxieties and the organization’s requirements for this process, what SHOULD our process be in clear, explicit steps?
   • Can we reach agreement about that and institute this clear process?
   • How do our measurement practices and data requirements need retooling in order to drive ongoing monitoring and improvement?
   • In a step-by-step timely manner, how will we convert to the improved process?
   • How will we stay on top of the change to make course corrections, hold the gains and build on them?

Return from Impact Patient Satisfaction with Process Redesign to Hospital Patient Satisfaction

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