A Broader Approach to Measuring the Healthcare Experience
Managing healthcare experiences requires a nuanced approach of looking at not only patient satisfaction but also the satisfaction of clinicians, families and caregivers, and employees. As a result, vendors in this space are starting to design their products to assist all healthcare stakeholders, not just patients.
To shed more light on what is happening in this market, KLAS published the Healthcare Experience Management 2024 report, which looks at how well vendors are meeting the needs of all stakeholders and how healthcare organizations are using those broader solutions. Also, to align with the market’s shift in focus, KLAS has renamed the Patient Experience Improvement market segment to Healthcare Experience Management.
The Reason behind the Shift
Familiar to healthcare professionals, the Quadruple Aim of improving healthcare represents the ideal end result of healthcare: an enhanced patient experience, improved population health, reduced costs, and an elevated clinician experience. Healthcare organizations achieve these goals when they focus on the healthcare experience for people beyond just patients.
“Having an understanding of the other integral stakeholders—like the employees, the clinicians, the family, and the caregivers—elevates the overall experience for the patient,” shares Spencer Snyder, Insights Director at KLAS and co-author of this report. That’s why shifting focus from the patient experience to the overall healthcare experience is so crucial in the market at this time. To better serve patients, multiple parties—including healthcare organizations, vendors, and government officials—have to better understand all aspects of care.
KLAS is now providing data with a higher-level view on the healthcare experience to aid in that understanding. “It’s a deeper way to look at the overall needs of consumers,” explains Adam Cherrington, VP of Engagement at KLAS and co-author of this report.
The Intent of the Report
KLAS first started noticing this shift in the market when vendors began to offer functionality addressing all healthcare stakeholders. Cherrington and Snyder then researched providers’ functionality use cases and the providers’ overall experiences with their healthcare experience management platforms. The resulting insights are compiled in the report, which is intended to “elevate healthcare organizations’ understanding of these vendors’ products,” says Snyder.
The report also shares how the market is changing and evaluates to what extent vendors’ products are measuring the experiences of different healthcare stakeholders, what key outcomes providers are achieving by working with these vendors, and how well vendors are performing.
An Interesting Finding
Data in the report shows that provider organizations are using multiple vendors to aid in measuring stakeholders’ healthcare experiences. While that may not be the most convenient approach with the current consolidation trends, organizations using these vendors’ solutions are finding that they receive better data to aid in their decision-making. And notably, more-established vendors aren’t the only players with the resources to effectively address the needs of multiple healthcare stakeholders.
Organizations are seeing the following results from using vendors’ solutions:
- Real-time data insights
- Opportunities for better service recovery
- Improved response rates from a more diverse patient population
- More engaged physicians and clinicians
- Improved measurement of stakeholder experiences
- Reduced manual workloads
- Better brand reputation management
- Improved consumer relationships
- Increased patient satisfaction
The Future of the Market
The recent shift in this market is a catalyst for greater change. More developments have taken and will take place as healthcare organizations and vendors learn how to better serve all healthcare stakeholders, not just patients.
Of note, Epic is now independently collaborating with Press Ganey and Qualtrics to help provider organizations integrate patient experience data with the EHR. Feedtrail and PRC, though competitors, are also partnering to offer CAHPS regulatory capabilities and real-time surveying tools to customers. Furthermore, some vendors that have traditionally worked outside of healthcare are starting to market their solutions for healthcare organizations. KLAS will continue to monitor these developments and publish research to give healthcare organizations clarity on how to best improve the healthcare experience.
This report reveals the current state of the healthcare experience market and begins to interpret what this new perspective means for healthcare. Upcoming research will give KLAS the opportunity to “build on these findings and find out what the future story is going to be,” shares Snyder.
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