Fred Lee, author, healthcare leader, public speaker, and former Disney senior-level hospital executive, posed a very important question regarding the dynamic between patient satisfaction and patient experience. What do Disney and a hospital have in common?
At first, Disney may seem like the odd one out. What does a theme park have to do with a hospital? In Lee’s book, If Disney Ran Your Hospital: 9 1/2 Things You Would Do Differently, he answers this very question. The answer lies in the history and purpose of hospitals’ quests to improve patient satisfaction.
Table of Contents
- Patient Satisfaction in Healthcare as a Service Industry
- The Disney Metaphor
- Patient Experience in Healthcare
- Healthcare Providers’ Shift in Perception of Patient Care
- How Patient Satisfaction and Patient Experience Differ
- Improving Patient Experience by Reducing Suffering
- 3 Contributing Factors to Patient’s Likelihood to Recommend
- Conclusion: The Dynamic Between Patient Satisfaction and Patient Experience
Patient Satisfaction in Healthcare as a Service Industry
In 1985, Irwin Press, Ph.D., an anthropologist, and Rod Ganey, Ph.D., a sociologist and statistician, both professors at Notre Dame, set out to create a new market in healthcare: surveying and administration. Coined the Press Ganey, the survey aims to measure patient satisfaction. The problem was that in the 1980s, hospitals and healthcare had little idea what factors actually contributed to patient satisfaction. Survey companies started to help healthcare organizations improve their satisfaction scores and offer advice based on results from the survey.
Lee, a hospital administrator at the time, worked with his hospital staff to improve patient satisfaction by mimicking service industries such as restaurants. Like a waiter or waitress, the nurses at Lee’s hospital were given scripts for speaking to patients, such as, “Is there anything else I can do for you today?”
This standardized script provided consistent attention to repeat service but fell short regarding increasing patient satisfaction scores. The hospitals simply failed to meet the emotional needs of their patients.
The Disney Metaphor
This failure to meet patients’ emotional needs brings us back to why Lee compares Disney to a hospital. Disney is not focused on the service but rather on the fun experience they provide to families. Now, hospitals are not intended to be a “fun” environment, but there is a similarity. A hospital aims to meet the emotional needs of a family amid their fear, pain, suffering, and sometimes even tragedy together. As quoted by Lee, “A hospital without compassion is like Disney without fun.”
“A hospital without compassion is like Disney without fun.”
At the center of improving patient satisfaction lies the healthcare staff, nurses, and doctors who are determined to provide positive experiences through engaging patients in a memorable, informative, and positive way- and they do it from the heart.
Patient Experience in Healthcare
Patient experience is a term that initially surfaced in the 1990s and has become a major focus in healthcare over the last two decades. The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) defines patient experience as
“A range of interactions that patients have with the healthcare system, including their care from health plans, and from doctors, nurses, and staff in hospitals, physician practices, and other healthcare facilities. As an integral component of healthcare quality, patient experience includes several aspects of healthcare delivery that patients value highly when they seek and receive care, such as getting timely appointments, easy access to information, and good communication with health care providers.”
Healthcare Providers’ Shift in Perception of Patient Care
Nationally implemented in 2006, the Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems Survey (HCAHPS), also known as CAHPS, was created to measure patients’ perspectives of their care. This allows healthcare facilities to make meaningful comparisons regarding aspects of care that are especially important to consumers. While modern healthcare is still a service industry, offering medical services to patients as clients, a shift in perception of patient care takes place: patient experience.
How Patient Satisfaction and Patient Experience Differ
Essentially, even though the terms “patient satisfaction” and “patient experience” are often intertwined, they differ. For example, two patients can receive the exact same care, having the same experience- but based on the patient’s perception of care, they can have two completely different satisfaction scores. This is because experience is deeply tied to delivery and communication, whereas satisfaction with care is directly related to the patient’s expectations.
The goal? To improve patient experience and increase patient satisfaction.
Improving Patient Experience by Reducing Suffering
Dr. Diedre Mylod, Executive Director of the organization’s Institute for Innovation and Senior Vice President of Research & Analytics at Press Ganey, focuses her time on exploring how to improve the entire patient experience- including patient satisfaction, clinical process, and outcomes. In her TEDx talk, “Improving Patient Experience Means Reducing Suffering”, Mylod proposes that the key to the dynamic between patient satisfaction and experiences is to reduce suffering for both the patient and family.
When a family faces illness or disease, the suffering spans many different aspects of life. The physical and emotional pain of the patient, the emotional pain of the family, lack of trust, frustration… the list can go on. How well a hospital meets the family’s expectations of care and reduces suffering directly relates to improving experience and satisfaction.
Frustrations such as unnecessary wait times and lack of communication among healthcare staff contribute to a lack of trust. Once that trust is gone, it can be difficult to regain and maintain patient loyalty.
Something as seemingly small as speaking from the heart and thoroughly communicating information regarding care with empathy can immediately reduce suffering- even if disease and pain are still present.
3 Contributing Factors to Patient’s Likelihood to Recommend
1. Communication: Staff who work together
Patients were 79% likely to recommend their care facility to others based on whether they felt good communication amongst staff. This collaborative communication reduces medical errors, wait times, and allows patients to feel at ease. Comparatively, patients who did not feel like the staff worked together were only 33% likely to recommend the care facility to others.
2. Trust: How much do patients trust their physician or nurses?
The trustworthiness of physicians, nurses, and other healthcare professionals greatly contributes to a patient’s likelihood to recommend to others.
3. Courtesy, Respect, and Compassion
Deeply intertwined in patient satisfaction and patient experience, the way the patient is treated by staff is the third factor that mainly determines a patient’s likelihood to recommend to others. Treating patients and their families with dignity, respect, and empathy creates a continuum of care that eases suffering and improves the experience.
Conclusion: The Dynamic Between Patient Satisfaction and Patient Experience
In a 2012 study done by Joel M. Kupfer and Edward U. Bond, the relationship between patient satisfaction and experience was researched in relation to how the care facility’s service meets the patient’s expectations. As discussed above, the two terms are deeply intertwined with one another. Kupfer and Bond’s study revealed that the dynamic of the perception of quality care is mainly related to:
- The provider (i.e., physicians, nurses, medical staff, and their communication as a team)
- Cultural influences & accommodations
- The environment (i.e., appearance, cleaning, heat, AC, lighting, noise, location, waiting rooms, parking)
- Recovery
- Pain management
With all of these dynamics together, patients can determine their level of satisfaction.
Seyzo Health is a healthcare digital rounding platform that aids nurse leaders, hospital executives, and all medical staff in better communication and easily completing hourly rounds. With the power of data, healthcare facilities can use our platform to make informed decisions regarding patient care and improve the patient experience while increasing patient satisfaction.
