Patient experience has changed tremendously over the years. Early in Quint Studer’s career, some 80 percent of C-suite people were unaware of their results in this area. Today, in part due to Quint’s work in the field—he connected patient care to the concept of customer service, and has been credited with putting patient experience “on the map”—it is now a vital part of healthcare.

Even so, with budget reductions, restructuring, and other challenges, many organizations are struggling with their patient experience results. In a recent podcast interview, Studer engaged industry experts Regina Shupe, DNP, RN, with The Christ Hospital Health Network and Healthcare Plus Solutions Group^®, and Jennifer Carron Passon, MSOM, CPXP, with BJC Health System, in a discussion on why that is…and what can be done about it.

Here are just a few insights from their discussion:

 Don’t underestimate the scope of patient experience. (Someone needs to “own” it.) Today, healthcare is seen as a service industry. It encompasses the sum of all interactions from the initial touchpoint when a patient considers selecting a healthcare organization until the time they are back home caring for themselves and maintaining a healthy lifestyle. Thinking of patient experience in these broader terms underscores the value of investing in a chief experience officer (whether or not they have that title).

Know the barriers so you can tackle them. For example, some people find the traditional use of percentile-based evaluations, which create winners and losers, to be a barrier. (Studer, Shupe, and Passon discuss a 2021 JAMA article on the subject and debate the pros and cons of percentile rankings. Even if this methodology is kept, podcast participants generally agree it could be taught and used more effectively.)

Other potential barriers include lack of alignment across teams, time and budget restrictions, staff shortages, and plain old resistance to change. One big issue highlighted in the podcast is the relative inexperience of healthcare leaders: It will be difficult to move patient experience results without putting dollars into our training budgets and giving them good access to resources.

Build a community you can tap into. The more people you know who are knowledgeable and experienced and share the same passion for patient experience, the better. You can tap into them for advice and get them to help identify blind spots.

Get to the root cause of issues. (This allows you to create actionable plans.) Dig into the data. Passon says that when wait times went up at BJC Health System hospitals, communication went down. Their consumers, who are 45 and under, expect real-time communication and an explanation of what’s going on. So they set specific periods of time to communicate updates to the patient, whether it’s digital or putting someone in the waiting room to continuously round and provide updates. Not only did it significantly change their experience results, it reduced the number of patients who left without being seen or left against medical advice.

Put the right tools in front of decision-makers and be ready to make your case. People want to do a good job, and there are lots of wonderful tools out there to assist leaders. It’s up to experience officers to bring solutions to them and to be able to “sell” them to CEOs and boards—helping them understand how this will make them more efficient and effective.

 Invest in people. There is a connection between employee experience and patient experience. The more you support and invest in your people, the more it shows up in experience outcomes. BJC does a great job with this. They make professional development part of their onboarding, encourage employees to build skills, and offer a robust education reimbursement program. Also, Passon requires her team to become patient experience certified within the first two years.

One more piece of advice: Never underestimate the passion of your people to make a difference. You can leverage that in your work to improve the patient experience.

As Shupe puts it, “If you’re coming into healthcare right now, in this day and time, you are passionate about loving and caring for people at all levels, no matter what your role is…If you’re coming into healthcare, you’re in the right place, because healthcare today is still a beautiful place to be.”

The content above is excerpted from Rethinking Patient Experience: Barriers, Mindset Shifts, and Solutions That Work with Regina Shupe, DNP, RN, and Jennifer Carron Passon, MSOM, CPXP. Click here to listen!