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While the chief concern of the NHS and private healthcare providers is delivering quality medical care, a patient’s guest experience extends beyond purely medical concerns. After all, both patient satisfaction and efficiency of patient care can have a tremendous impact on patient outcomes.
A visit to the doctor can be very stressful for your patients and their families, so anything you can do to make their experience easier will speak volumes. Approaching healthcare from a hospitality perspective as well as a medical one can help.
One area where hospitals and clinics can learn from the hospitality industry is in implementing communications applications that can enhance efficiency and delivery of care. Here are three types of healthcare communications solutions, adapted from the hospitality industry, that can improve your guest experience and drive the efficiency of your teams when integrated into your systems at a pace that's right for you.
1. Mobile Apps
With the right mobile apps, you can help make everything feel more comfortable and intuitive for your patients. Healthcare facilities can be confusing to navigate, particularly larger hospitals. A mobile application for your patients can provide helpful information, like where they can find treatment rooms or guest waiting areas. They can also add an element of security; if you provide patients with a mobile application with location tracking, your patients can quickly get the help they need no matter where they are in your facility.
2. Integrated Communications Applications
From admissions to in-room entertainment, your patients will interact with a number of applications and systems. When those systems are interconnected, your facility will be better equipped to keep track of important patient information. This applies not only to your healthcare information system, but also to your billing systems. By integrating your communications systems with your healthcare information and billing systems, you will be able to ensure no part of a patient’s stay slips through the cracks.
3. Workflow Management Applications
Just like in hospitality, efficiency is key. Wait times for procedures or bed turns can take a patient stay from a healing experience to a frustrating one. To improve efficiency, look for a workflow management solution designed to accelerate tickets to the right person the first time. For example, if a patient needs to be transferred from one room to another for treatment, but requires the assistance of a porter, with a mobile-friendly workflow management tool you can send a notification directly to that porter’s mobile device, ensuring a rapid response. Likewise, this type of notification system can be effective in routing surgical or emergency staff when urgent situations arise.
The patient experience is getting a greater focus in healthcare, and with these types of applications in place your healthcare trust or organisation is primed to provide an even better patient experience.
