A number of you have written recently asking what it is I do and how I might be able to assist their organization.

I have consulted on innovating patient/customer experience for twenty-five years, having run my own consulting firm for the last seventeen. My clients on five continents have a combined customer base of more than two hundred million.

Less than twenty percent of health systems have a working definition of patient experience, and of those that do it is defined around HCAHPs. My definition is a remarkable experience for every person (patient and prospective patients) every time on every device.  Major parts of what hospitals lack are a strategy to provide that kind of experience to both patients and prospective patients.  This includes linking a mobile experience strategy and a digital strategy.  Setting this as a goal enables hospitals to focus on improving not just the care, but also on improving patient retention, patient referrals, attracting new patients, and making it easier to do business with the hospital.

In healthcare almost every hospital regards patient experience solely as defined by CMS. That ignores the experiences and level of satisfaction of those not surveyed, people seeking second opinions, and prospective patients. It ignores the experiences occurring prior to admissions, and those occurring post-discharge. It also does not address experiences formed from nonclinical processes like scheduling, admissions, billing, claims, and complaints.

More people ‘visit’ the hospital each day by phone and on the web than walk in the front door, yet nobody knows how those people rate their experience and whether they will ever return.

Eighty percent of prospective patient’s visit a hospital’s website before determining where they will buy healthcare.  Fifty percent of patients go to a hospital’s website to determine whether they will seek a second opinion. Nobody who designed the website ever asked one of those patients what information they would need to find to help them select their hospital. 

I help organizations answer these questions.

I start by helping them define a strategy for what I call the Total Quality of a person’s (patient and prospective patient) Encounter (TQE) with the hospital.  Next I complete an assessment of where they are with regard to meeting the TQE strategy including developing:

• A digital strategy including:
  • Websites—most hospitals have hundreds of disparate URLs
  • Social media and social CRM

• A mobile strategy for meeting their needs on various devices
  • For example, why can’t a patient schedule an appointment online or do some form of self-admitting on an iPad rather than arriving at six AM with everyone else?

• A Call Center Strategy
• A strategy for improving Nonclinical business processes 

Based on the assessment we jointly set priorities and a work plan to create a remarkable experience for everyone.

Attached are a few brief presentations that offer some detail.  Please let me know if we may schedule a call or perhaps meet.

http://www.slideshare.net/paulroemer/defining-a-global-patient-experience-for-your-health-system

http://www.slideshare.net/paulroemer/step-aside-hcahps

http://www.slideshare.net/paulroemer/call-center-strategies

You can reach me at paulroemer@gmail.com, or by phone 484-885-6942.

http://www.slideshare.net/paulroemer/how-to-acquire-patients-21677042