Survey On The Spot Blog

In the current competitive healthcare market, providers must strive to meet the highest patient satisfaction standards in order to earn their business. One of the most important factors in the patient’s perception of the quality of care is the healthcare environment. The physical setting – especially the waiting room – is the patient’s first impression of the facility and it sets the tone for their entire visit.

Whether patients are visiting their doctor for a routine check-up or for something more serious, they want to walk into a welcoming, low-stress environment. Doctor’s appointments can be associated with anxiety, so patients should be welcomed into a soothing atmosphere when they enter the waiting room.

Patient experiences in the waiting room are about more than just the physical setting, however. Long wait times can have a significant negative effect on the patient’s overall experience. Even if the patient had a pleasant interaction with his or her doctor, it can be easily overshadowed by a prolonged waiting room experience. In addition, staff members can positively or negatively affect a patient’s visit, with qualities such as responsiveness, courtesy, competence, and communication playing an important role.

With all of these factors that can make or break a patient’s experience, there is a lot for healthcare providers to stay on top of. Survey On The Spot’s real-time survey system allows providers to hear directly from their patients about what they did or did not like about their visit, giving providers the opportunity to quickly make any necessary changes and remain at the top of patient quality standards.

Is it too cold in the waiting room? Is the music too loud or unpleasant? Is the restroom’s cleanliness sub-par? Instant alerts notify managers of these and any other potential issues so the problem can be fixed before it’s too late and the patient leaves having had an unpleasant experience. Patients can also give feedback on more long term issues, such as long wait times or unfriendly staff members, and providers can then use this feedback to improve their services.

With Survey On The Spot, healthcare providers are able to ensure that their waiting rooms are setting just the right tone for their patients’ visits.

As we previously reported (link: http://blog.surveyonthespot.com/2011/12/07/happy-patients-profitable-hospitals/), maintaining patient satisfaction is now even more of a priority for hospitals as it is closely tied to revenue. A new rule mandated by the Affordable Care Act pits hospitals against each other in a competition for reimbursements, and the scores are based on patient satisfaction rates determined by Medicare-approved surveys.

With money on the line, we suggest that hospitals be proactive in improving patient service by implementing real-time patient satisfaction surveys to complement traditional feedback collection. By using Survey On The Spot’s real-time surveys, hospitals and other healthcare offices can catch potential problems before they grow and reflect poorly on ratings.

Survey on the Spot surveys will be most effective if given to patients during Available Guest Time: the period of time when a transaction is being processed. The best way to ensure survey participation is to increase convenience for the patient as much as possible. Patients typically won’t go out of their way to fill out a survey unless they’ve had a particularly positive or negative experience, so your best bet to obtain the most comprehensive and accurate survey results is to present the survey during a downtime when the patient would otherwise just be waiting. A Survey On The Spot survey on an electronic device can easily be administered at the end of an appointment while a co-payment is being processed or new appointment is being set.

Healthcare offices receive more survey responses from patients when they take advantage of Available Guest Time, which means more comprehensive data with which to improve services. Whether or not there are reimbursements up for grabs, healthcare offices have a lot to gain from these surveys. In this competitive healthcare market, it is extremely important for providers to achieve the highest level of service possible.

Patient surveys can be customized to gain feedback on important concerns such as wait time, ambiance, cleanliness, staff attitude and attentiveness, and more. Surveys will help healthcare offices better understand patient service standards and will illuminate any pressing issues, allowing providers to adjust their services to meet these standards and address problems – ultimately improving performance.