Engagement with patients separates top-rated health care providers from the pack

Although technology continues to revolutionize the health care industry, personal engagement is what drives patient satisfaction.

“It’s clear — patient experience starts with health care workers on the front lines, from the physicians and nurses who provide clinical care to the staff who check people into the hospital and manage billing,” according to the 2023 Healthcare Industry Reputation Report. ”Positive reviews underscored how much people on the frontlines make a difference in a positive patient experience.”

Reputation, a consumer feedback software company, analyzed more than one million patient reviews across 200,000 physicians and hospitals and surveyed consumers about how they search for care. For hospitals, the top three drivers of positive sentiment were staff, bedside manner, and competence of the physician. For physicians, the top three drivers were almost identical — bedside manner, staff and competence of the physician.

“When we dug deeper into the ratings, we were impressed by how often patients mentioned both quality of care and the compassionate, attentive approach of the caregiver,” the report says. “We noticed another recurring theme — patients noticed when providers took whatever time was needed to provide attentive care rather than rushing their patients out the door.”

By contrast, negative sentiment drivers for hospitals included wait times, emergency care and pain management. “When wait times and the emergency room experience were mentioned in reviews we analyzed, star ratings were typically extremely low, so feedback in those two categories alone could be especially damaging to star ratings for hospitals and physicians,” the report says.

As the industry comes out of the COVID-19 pandemic, health care providers are beginning to rethink how they engage with patients throughout their experience. They are finding that the patient experience is complex and fragile.

“It’s complex, because the experience extends beyond the quality of clinical care,” the report says. “It extends to every conceivable touchpoint with a patient inside the four walls of a hospital and beyond, from the moment someone searches for care online to long after they receive service and pay a bill.

“But the complexity of the experience makes it fragile, too. One misstep can undo the entire experience. A patient can have a positive overall experience, but if one thing goes wrong — say, a bad experience with a staff person or a clumsy registration process — a provider’s rating or review can be affected negatively.”

The report outlines four ways in which providers can use feedback to improve the patient experience:

• Improve the ER experience. “Our analysis of reviews reveals that hospitals can improve the ER experience in areas such as staff interactions,” the report says. “That, coupled with improvements in waiting area amenities like Wi-Fi, can impact the ER experience. We noticed criticisms of the professionalism of ER staff, ranging from rude receptionists to staff who lacked empathy. This feedback underscores the importance of providing a great patient experience throughout the entire journey to receive care.”
• Manage appointments more effectively. Scheduling a doctor’s appointment remains a notoriously frustrating experience, largely because of long wait times to get in to see the doctor. One alternative for physicians to explore is relying more on tools to help patients treat issues that may not require an appointment in the first place.
• Communicate value for care more effectively. People are less likely to complain about the affordability of care when they believe they are getting valuable care. Physicians do not always communicate the outcomes they are delivering as well as they could. Moreover, being more attentive and compassionate could provide the intangible that makes people feel they are valued.
• Consistently request feedback. Asking for feedback unlocks that silent majority of patients who had a great experience but otherwise wouldn’t have written a review.

Related: Price transparency data from hospitals is ‘challenging, if not impossible’ to parse

“Engagement is the biggest difference between leaders and laggards,” the report concludes. “The gap between leaders and laggards was 83 points for engagement. Leaders engage more with patients and respond to reviews much better than laggards do.”