While a healthcare facility’s chief concern is in providing medical care, a patient’s guest experience extends beyond purely medical concerns. Both patient satisfaction and efficiency of patient care can impact the reputation of your healthcare facility, which affects your bottom line.
A visit to a healthcare facility can be a very stressful experience for your patients and their families, so anything you can do to make their experience easier will speak volumes. Approaching healthcare from a hospitality perspective as well as a medical one can help improve your patient satisfaction.
One area where healthcare facilities are learning from the hospitality industry is in implementing communications applications that can enhance efficiency and delivery of care. Here are three types of healthcare communications applications, adapted from the hospitality industry, that can improve your guest experience, and drive the efficiency of your teams.
1. Mobile applications
With the right mobile applications, you can help make an experience at your healthcare facility feel more comfortable and intuitive for your patients. Healthcare facilities can be confusing to navigate, particularly larger hospital system. A mobile application for your patients can provide helpful information, like where they can find treatment rooms or guest waiting areas. They can also provide your facility an element of security; if you provide patients with a mobile application with location tracking, your patients can quickly get the help they need no matter where they are in your facility.
2. Integrated communications applications
From admissions to in-room entertainment, your patients will interact with a number of applications and systems. When those systems are interconnected, your facility will be better equipped to keep track of important patient information. This applies not only to your healthcare information system, but also to your billing systems. By integrating your communications systems with your healthcare information and billing systems, you will be able to streamline the check-out process, and ensure no part of a patient’s stay slips through the cracks.
3. Workflow management applications
In the healthcare industry, as in the hospitality industry, efficiency is key. Wait times for procedures, or bed turns, can take a patient stay from a healing experience to a frustrating one. To improve efficiency, look for a workflow management solution that is designed to accelerate tickets to the right person the first time. For example, if a patient needs to be transferred from one room to another for treatment, but require the assistance of a porter, with a mobile-friendly workflow management tool you can send a notification directly to that porter’s mobile device, ensuring a rapid response. Likewise, this type of notification system can be effective in routing surgical or emergency staff when urgent situations arise.
The healthcare industry is placing a higher value on the guest experience than ever before, and with these types of application in place, your healthcare facility is primed to provide an even better patient experience.
