Do you know how well you are doing?
Obtain feedback from patients, staff
Even though a hospitalwide satisfaction survey given to patients at Wake Forest Baptist Health in Winston-Salem, NC, was customized with wording such as "the person who asked you for your insurance information," patients still sometimes confuse their registration experience with other areas, says Keith Weatherman, CAM, MHA, associate director of service excellence for the corporate revenue cycle.
"When it comes to admissions, some patients lump everything else into it," he says. "We've tried surveying within particular registration departments. But after a while, we felt we were surveying our patients to death."
Patient satisfaction scores for patient access areas are compared with similar hospitals in the region, says Weatherman. On the last report, the ED registration area came in at the 74th percentile, and admissions came in at the 64th percentile, he says. "Our goal is to get to the 90th percentile, and maintain that," he says.
In addition to the hospitalwide survey, Weatherman talks to patients during rounding to assess the quality of service given by staff. If a patient complains about waiting, Weatherman finds out the reason for the wait and how long it will be. He then does something to make the patient more comfortable during the wait.
In conversing with a patient access employee while rounding, Weatherman learned that blankets used to be available from a certain department to offer patients, but they weren't offered any longer because the department moved.
"If she hadn't said something, I wouldn't have known about it," he says. "The very next day, laundry delivered a supply of blankets to admission."
Lobby is issue
Weatherman also discovered that the patients didn't like the open layout of the lobby, which was redesigned several years ago to be open and spacious.
"We have discovered that our lobby design doesn't work. The original thought was to make it a big, open airy place so it was not so institutional, but now we've backed off on that," he says. "Patients need to have a more private waiting area."
Patients felt they were "out on display" and occasionally became nauseated by the smell of food being brought through the area, he explains. When physician administrators visited admissions areas during hospitalwide rounds, they realized that patients didn't like the open lobby design. "That's how we were able to convince facilities planning to redesign it: because those folks saw it for themselves when they came through," he says.
The new design will separate registration areas from the main lobby, so that patients being registered or waiting for beds to become available can have a more private area.
"Registrars will be able to look out across the lobby and have more personal accessibility to the patients," he adds. "Patient access was heavily involved in this design, so if we are not happy with it, we only have ourselves to blame."
Patient access can't assume that hospital leaders know what the department needs, he says. "It's up to us to be the spokesperson and go to the folks above. They're not going to understand this unless we go to them," he says. "We need to do whatever it takes to be that squeaky wheel."
Even though a hospitalwide satisfaction survey given to patients at Wake Forest Baptist Health in Winston-Salem, NC, was customized with wording such as "the person who asked you for your insurance information," patients still sometimes confuse their registration experience with other areas, says Keith Weatherman, CAM, MHA, associate director of service excellence for the corporate revenue cycle.You have reached your article limit for the month. Subscribe now to access this article plus other member-only content.
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