Hand-Crafted Care: 4 Ways to Improve Patient Satisfaction

If you have worked hard to build up your private medical practice, you obviously have a deep concern for the quality of care that you provide to each of your patients. Within the healthcare field today, there is a great deal of competition. Patients want to feel cared for every step of the way, particularly when it comes to matters of their own health and well-being. In order to improve your own standing within the community in which you serve, consider the following four ways to improve patient satisfaction.

Empower Front Line Healthcare Workers

As the owner of a healthcare practice, you cannot be in all places at all times. Decisions need to be made, with or without you. If you do not enable your staff to make certain decisions on their own, patient satisfaction levels will decrease due to them having to wait around. Reverse this trend by properly training your front line healthcare workers and empowering them to act on your behalf. Not only will this free your plate to focus on other areas of the practice, it will also help your patients to see the value that you place on all of your staff.

Define Clear Performance Expectations for All Managers

Managers are your eyes and ears. They are also the very individuals responsible for training and equipping your staff to give excellent care to each and every patient that walks through your doors. Their importance cannot be minimized, which is exactly why you need to see clear expectations for all managers in regards to their performance.

These should be clearly outlined and acted upon. Managers need to know not only what you expect of them, but also that you will be following through on an assessment of their performance. This will help them to see the importance and value that you place on patient care. When your managers perform well, so will your staff. This will have a trick down effect into all areas of your healthcare practice.

Better Engage Patients in Their Care

Patients need to feel that they are involved in their own healthcare decisions. If you will use patient engagement technology and spend time with them to really explain their options and the treatment plan that you are proposing, you will find that they are more satisfied with the level of care that you are providing. You do not want to appear as a practitioner that makes decisions on behalf of their patents and then just expects them to fall in line. You want to involve them in the process as much as possible. This will also lead to a higher likelihood that your patients will follow through on their care, thereby improving treatment outcomes in the end.

Improve Hiring Practices

One of the more common complaints that patients have today is the lack of quality care that they receive from healthcare staff. You can be the most conscientious owner in the region, but again you cannot be everywhere at all times. You need to depend upon your staff to provide the standard of care that you want to see given to all of your patients.

For that to happen, you want to make sure that you are hiring only the most qualified, capable, and professional of healthcare workers available to you. This might involve changing your approach to the hiring practices that you implement, but it will lead to increased patient satisfaction in the long term.

If you will work towards implementing these four principles into your healthcare practice, you will be well on your way to improving overall patient satisfaction. You want to retain your current patients and encourage them to spread the good word about what you are doing. By showing your patients that you care, you will be demonstrating the very rationale for opening your own practice in the first place.