Hospitals rank low across industries for patient and employee satisfaction

The 2023 Healthcare Experience Trends report aims to provide healthcare leaders with a global snapshot of insights and recommendations on what patients expect and what employees need.

WHY IT MATTERS

For the analysis, Qualtrics, which offers a HITRUST-certified and FEDRAMP-compliant experience management platform, surveyed nearly 9,000 consumers across 29 countries and 3,000 healthcare employees across 27 countries.

“They want respect, convenience and human connection,” according to the researchers.

While patient trust in providers is 5% higher than the cross-industry global average, at 79%, satisfaction is 3% less (74%) and the likelihood of patients to recommend providers is 2% less (70%).

Compared to Qualtrics 2022 trends data, patient trust for providers increased by 1%, and their likelihood to recommend providers was down by 1%.

Researchers found in the latest data that patients, as well as employees, want to know that their voices are heard and that their input propels change.

Patients’ payer experiences were also flagged. The company also surveyed more than 7,000 consumers across 28 countries about their health insurance experiences, and compared the data.

The researchers said, “61% of patients feel that healthcare providers need to do a better job at listening to their feedback, and 69% said the same about health insurance companies.”

Satisfaction with payer experiences also increased by 2% from the 2022 trends study.

The report recommends that healthcare leaders develop a focused listening strategy that is driven by empathy, embraces data tools and addresses “meaningful fixes for patients and employees that should have been corrected a long time ago,” wrote Dr. Adrienne Boissy, Qualtrics CMO, in the forward.

The four key actions organizations should focus on in the months ahead to improve patient satisfaction are:

• Close the loop on feedback to ensure people feel heard.

• Digitize and humanize every experience to make stronger connections.

• Create memorable patient experiences that earn trust.

• Take note of other industries and pave your own way.

For employees, engagement is 1% lower than the cross-industry global average, at 66%, and their intent to stay at their jobs is 3% less (61%). Compared to 2022 trends, employee engagement increased by 2%.

When weighing their experiences against expectations, healthcare employee results were 6% less (33%) compared to the average across industries.

The report offers three ways forward to address healthcare employee satisfaction:

• Create value for employees in order to retain top talent.

• Ease the burden on your employees by eliminating process inefficiencies.

• Design inclusive environments with holistic listening strategies

To ease employees’ burdens, organizations can act by “[e]mpowering local teams to make improvements every day, removing what gets in the way and tackling hard problems at the executive level.”

To ensure patients and employees alike feel heard, valued and appreciated Boissy says that healthcare organizations earn trust when they intentionally listen across channels, use advanced analytics to understand emotion, intensity and intent, and immediately take action.

“The beauty of technology is how it can enable a fuller understanding of human emotions across interactions, which power meaningful, seamless and more loving digital and in-person healthcare experiences,” she said in the report announcement.

The report also recommends the healthcare organizations look to successes by hotels, streaming services and electronics makers when designing human-centered, modern experiences.

THE LARGER TREND

Patient satisfaction is a high priority for many healthcare systems. Some have implemented real-time feedback strategies like text-message surveys that follow emergency room visits, inpatient telemedicine with specialists and self-service automation that improves access and reduces clinicians’ administrative burdens.

“As an ally to both patients and providers, we have the opportunity to ease the communication burden between both entities and deploy technology that’s both easy to use and impactful,” said Curtis Sherbo, vice president of product management at athenahealth.

In November he told Healthcare IT News that it’s incumbent on healthcare leaders to use technology to enable the free flow of information. “Technology needs to modernize the healthcare experience, similar to how technology has made the retail and financial services industries more consumer-centric, to bring more convenience, ease and immediacy to the patient experience,” he said.

ON THE RECORD

“2023 is the year our industry makes the lives of everyone healthcare touches easier,” Boissy said in the report announcement.

“It has to be – and we have to revolutionize our approaches. Emotions are running high no matter what industry you are in, which amplifies when things are not easy, and yet people still put their trust in us,” she said.