The Importance of Deploying Good Patient Experience as a Vital Strategy to Improve the Clinical Metrics - Assignment Example

Action Plan Purpose This paper is written to address the importance of deploying good patient experience asa vital strategy to improve the clinical metrics. The paper will, therefore, obtain the relevant information concerning patient experience feedback collection tools. The collection method of choice will be of great importance to the goals of this health service. Some strategies have been formulated through thorough brainstorming with the quality staff and the patient experience officer. Patient experience feedback is made up of opinions and views of service users and patients on the kind of healthcare they have received. This feedback is gathered by healthcare organisations in rigorous and systematic fashion. The information obtained is accurately made to improve on the complaints that are raised (Cabana, 2004). The study will, therefore, provide analysis and a discussion of the data provided to measure the clinical care outcome anomalies. As a result, it will provide a proposal for all the possible causes and formulate an action plan that will address these gaps. Background The main objective of a patient experience feedback is to deploy patient stories to boost health services. These services are therefore designed in such a way that they ensure that patients receive the best quality care. As a result, the services are focussed on the needs of the patients in opposition to the preferences and needs of the health service provider (Jha, Orav, Zheng, 2008). At the end of the day, the mode of delivery is improved in such a manner that it ultimately enhances the patient experience. Methods such as the reduction of patient delays in service queues, the flow and quality of health services and improvement in access to important fields of the health services are used just to name a few (Berwick, 2009). Patients are interviewed to obtain the much-required information directly. Some companies deploy satisfaction surveys that have obtained much fame in the past decade (Rathert, Huddleston and Pak, 2011). Programs such as partnering with patients are developed on a daily basis to assist clinicians who are led by a motive to provide excellent healthcare to their patients. This model does pay attention to the relationships that clinicians develop with their patients, and those that carers develop with families as they are all partners in a health service delivery system (Coulter, 2011). Patient experience is recognised as a member of the pillars supporting quality in health care. Its compatriots include patient safety and clinical effectiveness. In the NHS, patient experience data is measured to find out the weaknesses and strengths of a healthcare delivery. As a result, the measurements have overseen quality improvement and patient choice promotion made mandatory. As an addition to the data provided on success rates for treatments and harm avoidance, healthcare providers are assessed in terms of their respect and dignity, involvement and compassion in service provision (Street, Makoul and Arora, 2009). In England, for example, this data is published in quality accounts that sum up to a proportion of the income generated by service provider’s conditions on the improvement of patient experience feedback. The deployment of patient experience as one of the pillars of health care quality is justified by the fact that it is a method of driving an improvement in clinical effectiveness and patient safety (Coulter and Vincent, 2002). A good example is in the application of two-way communications, respect for patients’ concerns and beliefs as well as clear and reliable information can lead to patients becoming more informed about the decision-making process (Thom, Hall and Pawlson, 2004). Involving patients in health care decision making creates an appropriate environment in which the patients can share information. A better relationship with the healthcare stakeholders is of great importance when trying to curb unnecessary referrals. It is, however, vibrant in encouraging timely diagnosis and better clinical decisions (Fuertes, Boylan and Fontanella, 2009). An increase in the patient agency has shown great capabilities in encouraging a better participation in personal care as well as compliance with medication. In this instance, the patients are requested to keep a report of adverse effects that they experience from the provided medication (Safran, Taira and Rogers, 1998). Patients are known to obtain first-hand information whenever they visit a hospital. They become observers when involved in clinical encounters or whenever in a hospital ward. Such information is therefore of great importance when trying to obtain valuable insight concerning the routine health services that are provided. An example of such insights includes the responses put in place for pain attention in a hospital ward or the assistance provided while bathing(Darzi, 2008). Patients also hold vital insights on the help provided by feeding and the direct state of their physical environment such as noise, physical safety and cleanliness. Patient experience is of great importance when one needs to understand the level of coordination that exists between organisations or professions serving at a health service institute (Doyle, Lennox and Bell, 2013). Key Considerations and the relationship between patient feedback and clinical service In reference to Doyle, Lennox and Bell (2013), the patient experience can be associated with patient safety as well as clinical effectiveness in a positive manner. It has shown its relationship with the effectiveness of a clinical setup through a wide array of disease areas, settings, study designs, outcome measures and population groups. Patient experience is affiliated with health outcomes that are objectively measured and self –related. Also, it is related to the clinical service quality in a manner that enhances adherence to medication and treatment that have been recommended. Patience experience is also associated with the provision of preventative care such as using screening services as well as immunisations in major clinical setups. In conclusion, patient experience aids an improvement in clinical services through their association to the use of healthcare resource such as primary care visits, hospitalisation, adverse events, as well as the technical quality of the care provided. Scorecard of data performance items to provide an overview of quality care The manager should recommend that the health service needs to boost the patient experience indicators that are currently being used. He should convince the board that the department needs to carry out more measures to obtain patient experience feedback. This feedback should be provided on a timely basis for the relevant corrective measures to be carried out. The resulting measures ensure that the mistakes are rectified. Internationally, the indicators of patients experience once strictly followed point towards an important success in a clinical setup. The international indicators are focused on patient satisfaction with issues relating to the reliability of the health services system put in place. The international domain considers proper health directed to vulnerable groups or special interest. The manager should, therefore, recommend to the board that a report on the feedback obtained from vulnerable groups concerning the health service performance to be provided. These groups include the aged, illiterate individuals or others challenged by a language barrier and do not always have access to proper health services (Hibbert et al., 2013). As a result, the manager should look forward to satisfying their medical preferences and needs. Analysis of Available Options for Patient Experience Feedback The health service in question has formulated several approaches on which it plans to come up with the best-suited strategy. The approaches at hand include targeted patient surveys, patient complaints data and patient focus groups. These strategies also incorporate anonymous shoppers, patient diaries for inpatients, patient stories that are narrated by patients, real-time feedback devices that are hand held, patient feedback websites or social media, patient friend models and executive rounding on patient services and ward. Using patient collection devices that are hand held to obtain feedback from patients is a type of interviews. This form incorporates carrying out detailed discussions to obtain probing and qualitative feedback. However, the questions are asked in an investigative manner rather than structured questions that are asked verbally (Raiz, 1999). This approach enables the health service to obtain first hand and reliable information from the patients themselves. The data can also be recorded in the devices and assessed at a later time to make the required changes. Also to these advantages, handheld devices will make the process of collecting patient feedback an easy process. To begin with, the patients are not required to write down or fill-in forms that they normally find exhaustive. Hand-held devices are also able to obtain data from a wide range of patients regardless of their state as they do not require much energy to provide the feedback(Silva, 2013). However, obtaining patient experience feedback through this technique may leave out aspects that are of great importance to the quality of the health services provided. The handheld devices are susceptible to bias especially when they are driven by searching for a particular detail. The stories told by patients also make an important patient experience feedback collection tool. Narratives told by patients are usually affiliated with the relational aspects of a patient’s experience. In comparison to targeted patient surveys, the stories are not detailed in a sufficient manner. Silva(2013) argues that patient stories obstruct the identification of specific improvement actions. Targeted patient surveys are carried out in open-ended comments that are followed by a vast qualitative analysis. The approach of anonymous shoppers, executive rounds around wards and patient friend models are focused on exploiting observation collection method. Most of the studies that aim to collect patient experience through such methods are driven by an organisational or a professional perspective. Therefore, the collectors of patient experience feedback forget to examine the events in a deeper manner from a point of view that is similar to that of a patient. The use of focus groups comes with its benefits and a few disadvantages. To begin with, patients who are eager to participate in such groups find it easier to point out to areas that need improvement. It is, therefore, a perfect method to obtain first hand and honest feedback. Focus groups are an important means through which the complexities affiliated with patient satisfaction are addressed. These focus groups are important in uncovering unanticipated issues that might not have been identified by surveys. They, however, might gloss over the specific issues if they are not conducted properly. Focus groups are also known to end up to facilitator bias(Coulter, 2011). The use of patient compliments and complaints is also another important patient experience feedback collection tool. They provide a deep overview of the information especially on the specifics that call for improvement. Since they depend on spontaneous reporting, complaints do identify the specifics that patients are passionate or concerned about. When using a formal system such as health services, it is important to use information from people who are more confident expressing their feelings on the situation. Such limitations often curb the process of obtaining data from illiterate individuals. The approach is also limited towards collecting information on serious aspects rather than acknowledging a continuum. The use of websites is important for its ability to obtain unprompted patient experience from a wide range of patients. If the feedback is unprompted, the social media and websites give an insight into the specifics that patients are most concerned with. However, websites and social media are limited to a small range of people that comment online. The provenance of the comments made cannot be easily guaranteed (Peacock, 2005). The targeted patient surveys and patient complaints data are therefore the most suitable methods of collecting patient experience feedback. They provide a platform for reliable data that is of great importance when formulating a strategy to solve the challenges (Silva, 2013). From the analysis of the various approaches, it is clear that complaints and compliments from patients should often be studied. Only by such means, the health service board can learn from the real state of cleanliness of their facility. The board should, therefore, make it mandatory for the staff to review the remarks made by the patients. Change Management Strategy The best strategy for change management in this clinical setup is a normative-reductive approach. It assumes that individuals are social beings who will adhere to the cultural values and norms. As a result, for any success to be achieved, the existing values or norms have to be redefined to develop commitments to new norms. For the health staff in this health service, they will try to go along or fit into the new strategies that are formulated to enhance patient experience feedback collection. A dynamic and charismatic leadership from the manager and the board is of great importance in seeing to it that each of the medical personnel does what is expected of them. This change strategy is dependent on the culture that is what people believe in their place of work and themselves. On a normal basis, culture does not change easily and, therefore, the strategy should be put in practical shape without much hurry. Most of the change management strategies have a long-term as well as a short-term goal of which this strategy is not any different. The long-term goal of this strategy has to be flexible in such a way that it can accommodate normative-reductive actions (Nickols, 2010). Conclusion From this paper, we come to a conclusion that patient experience feedback is of great importance in the health sector. It goes along with the success of any clinical setup, and an appropriate feedback collection channel is necessary. Targeted patient surveys and patient complaints data are some of the best collection methods that can give a proper overview of the specifics that are in dire need of rectification. To effect these changes, a normative-reductive strategy is deployed to manage the new culture that is introduced to the health staff in this case study. 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