Tag: Formstack

Mar 9
2020

Digitizing Healthcare: What It Means For The IT Professional

By Rob Wiley, head of marketing and product strategy, Formstack.

Rob Wiley

If you’re in healthcare, it’s likely because you have a passion for helping others and solving problems. Those on the IT side of the industry are no exception. Healthcare IT has seen a significant shift from navigating health records in a paper-based system to the digitization of health data—and for good reason.

There are many benefits to digital transformation in the health industry. For one, administrative costs alone in healthcare account for nearly $266 billion per year. By transferring records like medical forms and insurance verification paperwork to a secure electronic platform, healthcare providers can save on administrative spending and put those funds into more impactful areas. Additionally, the digitization of health data streamlines communication between all levels of the healthcare process: from physicians to patients and insurance companies.

But the digitization of health data also comes with challenges that healthcare IT professionals must solve—most notably around the implications of Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) compliance, patient engagement and employee empowerment.

HIPAA Compliance

Rules and regulations in healthcare are ever-changing, and health providers and practices are expected to stay up-to-date and comply. Ensuring your company maintains compliance and data stays secure begins with your healthcare IT team. Not only does compliance protect your company from stiff penalties and violations, it also safeguards the protected health information (PHI) of customers and partners.

Consider this: A patient is asked to share interest in an elective surgery and decides to opt out. If this document confirming their disinterest in the surgery is stored insecurely using a paper file, this puts the patient’s trust at risk of being breached, and in turn, the decision to opt out of the procedure at risk of being dishonored. Meanwhile, storing this information in a secure, electronic file would reduce the risk associated with data breaches and the file being lost or misread. With a strong IT team following HIPAA guidelines, your practice can stay safe from violations and accidental exposure of sensitive records in the digital world of healthcare.

Patient Engagement

The digital transformation of healthcare doesn’t just impact the backend of business; it also affects patient experience and how practices are represented to future customers and partners. Healthcare IT professionals have to consider how digitization impacts the user experience and the ease of electronic communication between patient and practitioner. Here are seven important questions healthcare IT teams should ask themselves when evaluating their current digital network and any future improvements:

Healthcare IT professionals should consider the answers to these questions to determine the top changes they need to make to their digital system in order to improve patient experience and, ultimately, increase the number of patients they serve.

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Jul 24
2018

4 Tips To Amplify Your Patient Satisfaction Surveys

By Chris Byers, CEO, Formstack.

Chris Byers
Chris Byers

Patient satisfaction surveys are growing in popularity among healthcare organizations as the United States health system continues its transition to value-based care. A well-designed and distributed survey can help you discover hidden issues or gems in your organization’s care system. It can also provide useful insights on whether you’re meeting patient expectations.

If done right, your patient satisfaction survey can be a key player in building a satisfying and cohesive experience for patients. It can help you identify which aspects of care — facility appearance, provider approachability, cost, convenience, etc. — are most important to patients so you can plan improvements accordingly.

There’s just one catch: convincing patients to complete your surveys can be tough. You’ll need to up your game if you want to gather substantial feedback. To get the most out of your patient satisfaction surveys, follow these four tips:

Provide a Compelling “Why”

Even if your patient satisfaction survey takes only five minutes to complete, you’re still asking busy people to willingly give up their time. If you don’t want to be ignored, you need to give patients a good reason to spare five minutes.

In the communication accompanying your survey, let patients know you care about their experience at your facility and want their journey to be as frictionless as possible. Tell them their feedback plays a vital role in improving quality of care for all patients. Make it clear that you want to provide a best-in-class environment and service.

Keep Surveys Brief

If possible, it’s best to keep your surveys concise and simple. The longer and more complex a survey is, the less likely people are to participate. Also, if the survey is short and easy-to-understand, you’ll typically get better (and more clear) feedback from patients.

A top goal should be to ask patient satisfaction survey questions that elicit useful responses. This means keeping questions short and to the point. If a question is lengthy or focuses on more than one aspect of the patient experience, the patients’ answers may be confusing.

Avoid Paper Surveys

Although the healthcare industry is a bit behind on the digital revolution, patients are not. They expect the ease and convenience of completing surveys and other healthcare paperwork on their mobile devices. Thus, a paper survey will be met with disdain.

An online survey is user-friendly and much easier to manage than a paper survey. Patients can complete the survey whenever it is convenient for them, and all submitted data is housed in an organized database for easy analysis.

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