Oct 3
2023
How Healthcare Businesses Can Better Serve Their Patients
All businesses need to ensure that their customers are satisfied with their experience. But it’s especially important for healthcare businesses. After all, those customers are typically patients who have a strong emotional investment in the outcome of their trip to the healthcare facility. As such, healthcare operations that want to build a loyal customer base have to ensure their customers have a smooth experience from beginning to end.
In this post, we’re going to run through some handy strategies that healthcare businesses can adopt to ensure that their customers/patients have a good experience — and also no reason to look at your competitors.
Improve Digital Tools
There’s been a host of healthcare-related digital tools released in the last few years, especially during and after the coronavirus pandemic. You can ensure your customers have a great experience by utilizing digital tools to provide a seamless visit. This could take the form of telemedicine appointments, whereby your customers can receive updates, straightforward consultations, and prescriptions online, without having to leave their homes. It’s also recommended to invest in an online patient portal where your customers can view their medical history, request appointments, and other information that increases patient engagement.
Understand What They Value
You’ll be in a better position to offer the best experience possible if you know what your patients value. As with all businesses, having an understanding of the customers — in this case, patients — is key to delivering an exceptional experience that gets to the heart of what they want. There are multiple ways to understand your patients better, including conducting a conjoint analysis, soliciting feedback, or just more broadly analyzing the demographics of the area that you serve and understanding what issues and factors tend to affect those people. Ultimately, the more you know your patients, the more you can offer them.
It’s also recommended to conduct patient satisfaction surveys. They can be vital in ensuring that your healthcare facility is meeting the expectations of your patients. They should reveal what you’re doing well, what they’d like to see, and any common complaints which you can then address.
Extended Hours
A chief issue among patients is opening hours. Many find that they’re unable to visit a facility during the regular hours of operation due to work or family commitments. Healthcare facilities can make it easier for their patients to visit them — and increase profits — by offering extended hour days from time to time; for example, staying open later once a week, or opening a couple of Saturdays a month.
Friendly, Professional Staff
Finally, despite the emergence of digital tools as a vital component of healthcare operations, it’s important to remember that patients still value face-to-face interactions with friendly and professional staff. And that’s something that is unlikely to change anytime soon. While it’s the end result that matters most, keep in mind that patients want to feel as comfortable as possible along the way, and that’ll depend in large part on the level of service they receive from their healthcare professionals.