We hear the word “quality” in all facets of our lives. Any product or service that does not come accompanied with a perception of a high level of quality is quickly discarded.
In essence, quality is about offering an outstanding service to all stakeholders. At CCD Health, quality refers to how we are addressing the needs of our customers, and in turn, their customers. Organizations do this by constantly pursuing excellence: reviewing all interactions and driving continuous improvement.
With patient scheduling, there's a lot more to managing quality than just taking calls or handling them quickly. These things are certainly part of the picture, but, when it comes down to the appropriate way of handling an appointment, quality—and several of its attributes—become the key to success.
Here are three reasons why your practice would benefit from adopting a quality assurance program:
1. It helps you target and accomplish your goals
Having the right tools is the most effective way to determine if the level of service you are providing to your patients is up to their standards. You can do this by structuring precise quality assurance attributes to evaluate on a continuous basis, and then compiling them into a quality assurance form or hosted within a quality assurance platform. This will guarantee that you can track success and keep everyone accountable.
Another very important piece of quality assurance in healthcare with patient scheduling is to have the call flow properly mapped out. This will ensure repeatability and knowledge transfer. Your practice’s call flows could be extensive, depending on the radiology firm processes and on the region your patients reside. Nevertheless, the objective is to constantly revise the process in order to capture areas of opportunity and to drive improvements that can provide your patients with an enhanced experience.
2. You can use it to measure patient experience and brand reputation
We all know the saying: “What cannot be measured cannot be controlled.” When it comes to patient scheduling, there are several tools that you can use to effectively measure the patient experience. Two of the main ones are the Net Promoter Score survey (NPS) and the Customer Satisfaction Survey (CSAT).
Net promoter score (NPS)
This is a metric used in customer experience programs that measures the loyalty of customers or patients to a company. NPS is often held up as the gold standard customer experience metric. Currently, it’s used by millions of businesses to measure and track how they’re perceived by their customers. NPS scores determine segmenting between poor and positive feedback.
Customer satisfaction surveys (CSAT)
This is a measurement to determine whether a customer or patient feels their expectations have been fulfilled by a company's services. A company’s average CSAT score reflects the percentage of customers who are satisfied with the company’s services. It is expressed as a percentage, with 100 percent representing complete customer satisfaction.
Both of these metrics talk directly to your brand reputation. Simply put, brand reputation is the public's perception of a company or an organization. How the public views a certain brand is based on their personal direct or indirect experience with the brand. When it comes to your medical center, the higher your brand reputation, the better the probability that your patients will continue to keep their visits with the current service providers.
3. You can measure your team’s performance and success
In the current age we are living in, everything is measured. Miles driven in your car, minutes browsed in social media—even the number of occasions you search for cheap flights are registered and analyzed by highly sophisticated algorithms. With patient scheduling, establishing clear guidelines for measuring results is one of the great success drivers to show whether or not you are offering best-in-class services.
Soft skills are one of the most sought-after attributes because they are important for just about every job. Soft skills relate to how you work, and they include:
- Interpersonal (people) skills
- Communication skills
- Listening skills
- Time management
- Empathy
Being able to listen, comprehend, and explain in clear terms to patients enhances the ability to provide effective and individualized care. Soft skills affect everyone. They often influence how patients rate their overall experience in a healthcare visit.
As patients move through a variety of healthcare settings, soft skills are often the most observed aspect of the patient encounter. The patient’s perspective or satisfaction rating is often captured by using surveys, like those mentioned earlier in this article.
Patient responses to those surveys allow you to evaluate whether your patient’s needs are being met and identify areas for quality improvement. These types of questions are reflected in the healthcare team member’s ability to demonstrate proper use of his or her soft skills.
Quality assurance in healthcare is not only a numbers game. When dealing with patients, every interaction is different from the next, thus it’s imperative that organizations establish clear guidelines that help them navigate through the customer experience waters. If you use the proper tools to effectively measure satisfaction, and then achieve laser focus on soft skills, you will be able to drive continuous improvement and achieve a world-class service that patients need and deserve.
To learn more about the impact of quality assurance in healthcare, we invite you to view our webinar on tips for improvement.
Offer a best-in-class patient experience with CCD Health
At CCD Health, we believe that treating your patients with empathy and compassion is the best way to manage your practice. Yes, We make it a priority to address your patient's needs promptly and correctly. Our experience dictates that 9 times out of 10, a patient will remember how she was treated more than how quickly services were rendered.
CCD Health is the leading medical contact center for outpatient healthcare providers, offering exceptional patient and customer experience. Our specialists have been trained by some of the best professionals in the field, helping them transform into experts. Our partners support that claim, awarding us with an average NPS score of 9 out of 10.
To learn more about how our team of experts can help you understand and improve your Customer Experience (CX), contact us.