Healthcare providers are beginning to pay more than lip service to their customer and patient experience [CX/PX]. Typically, this comes at a time when they are being financially incentivized to improve their experience (value-based care and CMS reimbursements), or something is happening that is fundamentally challenging how the business is currently operating (patient leakage or consistently poor surveys and reviews).
These instances are not mutually exclusive and, more often than not, they are related to each other. But another common pain and catalyst for change is this: Most CX/PX problems boil down to people problems.
In the absence of universally communicated benchmarks or ‘Standards of Excellence’ to provide guidance and measure CX/PX, how can employees be held accountable for being left to their own interpretations of patient experience? And employees that are used to improvising and doing things their own way will have trouble changing if they feel too boxed in or see existing processes as broken or part of the issue.
What’s keeping you from effectively improving your CX/PX?
The truth is… changing behaviors and improving CX/PX is one of the hardest things to do––and not just because 70 percent of all projects fail.
The lack of commitment from leadership, process implementation, and ‘fuzzy objectives’ are some of the leading reasons initiatives to improve CX/PX and change organizational culture and behavior never reach their full potential.
There may be more than one way to implement positive and necessary change, but there is a proven process to successfully improve your CX/PX:
- Make CX/PX a strategic priority.
- Get the right people on the team.
- Define the business goals (and KPIs).
- Communicate throughout each phase.
- Iteration leads to innovation and transformation.
Involving departmental stakeholders and human resources is also essential to success, as everyone needs to feel included and positive about the changes. There will also be times to interview and gain feedback from process managers, but kick-starting any initiative has to start at the top for the entire company to see its value.
If not now, when?
An organizational commitment to improving CX/PX is step one, and leadership has to be committed to change.
There will always be a reason to put something off. And if a CX/PX initiative is not a strategic priority, it will continue to take a backseat to immediate revenue-generating activity or become misaligned with optimizing workflows.
But if you’re not focused on providing a great experience, how sustainable are any of the disruptive priorities jumping their place in line?
Is our Manager the best Messenger?
Rarely is a transformational leader and a great process manager the same person. The same philosophy applies to process implementation, and having the right people in the appropriate roles is invaluable to success.
CX/PX experts at the HealthX Group work collaboratively with internal teams to objectively audit every patient engaging process to help identify current strengths and opportunities for improvement. When there is a shared understanding of the plan and its requirements, resources, priorities, tasks and milestones––any new process to improve CX/PX can now be successfully implemented, measured, and managed.
Teamwork wins!
How are we defining success and measuring results?
CMS surveys are standardized for a purpose. As a result, their findings are one dimensional.
The CX/PX Compass increases our ability to establish KPIs and use proven methodologies to measure the metrics of delivering an invaluable experience. And once change is effectively implemented, we have the blend of proven methodologies and metrics to continuously measure and improve the delivery of a personalized experience.
Who are we changing the process for?
Communication is essential to success and the best way to get stakeholders and employees aligned with the organizational goal. This is an opportunity to be clear about what we’re strategically prioritizing and why.
Are we trying to improve CX/ PX or automate another process to save time and reduce costs?
Operational challenges and optimizing current workflows are not the same as improving your CX/PX. The results can be closely related, but most healthcare providers get so wrapped up in the ‘how’ that they rarely consider the ‘who’ they trying to help.
The focus of any CX/PX initiative needs to be solely focused on the patient… and the systems and processes that serve them.
Build. Refine. Improve.
There is no such thing as a silver bullet (software) solution. Healthy expectations for early success is key to improving CX/PX, and the iterative approach focuses on a single touch point and critical process before moving on to the next.
Improving patient intake is one of the best places to start. As the beginning of the patient journey, it is arguably where the foundation of trust is being formed or at risk of becoming another lost opportunity to build a lasting relationship.
Innovation may be part of the final solution, and the path to transformation, but we need to resist the urge to lean exclusively on software to solve process problems. And any process implementation that comes across as buggy or fails to become adopted by the intended user audience(s) will simply create another reason for employees and patients to complain––or worse, leave for another healthcare provider.
Introspective
Are you serious about improving your customer and patient experience? Are your leaders prepared to make CX/PX a strategic priority?
Creating a new role to manage patient experience is not the same as making an organizational commitment to change. It’s setting someone up for failure––and the projects they’re trying to champion internally––without the appropriate support, budget and implementation plan.
The HealthX Group can help. Our CX/PX solutions and collaborative implementation process is the difference between well-intentioned and well executed initiatives.
If the foundation of any business is built on repeat customers and referrals, then knowing how to consistently deliver a personalized experience won’t cost anything more than the ROI it delivers.