Backed by Research: A Better Experience Leads to Better Margin
The “patient experience movement” has been garnering serious momentum over the past ten years. From grass-roots efforts to more formal communities of practice such as the Beryl Institute, programs designed to improve the experience of care for patients and families have been deployed across the continuum.
At its core, the focus on patient experience has occurred because “it’s the right thing to do” for patients and families. Leveraging best practices from other industries to include both staff training and additional outside services, great strides have been made to address long-standing experience issues. Still, a key question remains. Does an improved patient experience positively impact the bottom line? While health leaders are faced with tightening resources, the need to provide evidence linking an improved patient experience with business outcomes is necessary.
In 2015, Accenture conducted a study that examined the relationship between hospital financial performance and patient experience of care scores (HCAHPS surveys). The results confirmed what many guessed all along – there is a strong correlation between the patient experience of care and higher financial margins. Across all types and sizes of hospitals, those that deliver an exceptional experience have margins growing far faster than others.
A 2016 study published by the Deloitte Center for Health Solutions said: “Our results show that patient experience has a strong association with hospital financial performance as measured by margins and ROA. Although the results also could be suggestive of better-performing hospitals making larger patient experience investments, hospitals with higher patient experience ratings financially outperform lower-rated hospitals even after controlling for hospital and local area characteristics.”
"Hospitals with higher patient experience ratings financially outperform lower-rated hospitals." Deloitte Center for Health Solutions study
Today’s completive health care environment calls for creative solutions. As the studies indicate, hospitals cannot rely solely on reducing costs, but must also focus on improving patient experience. Helping to meet strategic patient experience goals, Swank provides an accessible and affordable digital patient experience platform that allows health care clients to benefit from a premium collection of first run movies, popular TV series, meditation programs and basic health education content. Serving more than 500 hospitals across the country, Swank has partnered with leading hospitals and health systems to deliver a customized digital patient experience designed to increase patient satisfaction and perception of hospital quality.