after<\/em> the patient returns home.<\/p>\n\n\n\nHealthcare contact centers are uniquely positioned as the virtual front door for personalized support and referrals before using a clinical service and for individualized follow-up and coaching after discharge. In contrast to legacy call centers that process transactions, today\u2019s patient experience hub is the new nerve center of the organization. It delivers intentionally memorable experiences that mitigate risk, reduce unnecessary readmissions, and solidify loyalty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
With the launch of the Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (CAHPS) program by CMS in 2006, hospitals have dedicated significant time and resources to improving the results of CAHPS surveys. Increasingly, improving the effectiveness of a health network\u2019s contact center is viewed as an investment to improve the experience of care. This begins at the first touchpoint where someone new to the community calls for a referral to a primary care physician (PCP). It extends to after discharge when a contact center navigator calls to confirm a follow-up visit with that PCP.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This first touchpoint is critical. According to SHSMD (2012), the first three seconds of that initial interaction influences hospital selection and preference.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What Do Patients Want? <\/strong>CAHPS surveys reveal that effective, two-way patient-centered communication is the key differentiator. Here\u2019s the summary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n- Patients want to be heard.<\/li>
- Patients want their concerns validated and responded to with respect.<\/li>
- Patients want to be able to trust those who care for their health.<\/li>
- Patients need to understand their treatments and be confident that their care is coordinated.<\/li>
- Patients want to be cared for by engaged employees who make them feel like a top priority. They desire candor and straight talk about what\u2019s going on with them. They want to be assured of responsiveness to ongoing needs.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n
\u201cVoice of the patient\u201d audio files, recorded with patient permission, provide revealing snapshots of patient perceptions. Here are examples of verbatim patient comments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Audio transcription #1: <\/em><\/strong>\u201cThe doctor who did the surgery, his assistant (I guess the nurse), all the nurses that came and worked with me during the night, during my stay, was absolutely fantastic. Each one of them was always smiling and each one of them was always helpful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\u201cThe PT staff that walked with me around the hospital, the staff, the nurse\u2019s staff that I met in the hallway that was always polite and courteous and encouraging. I have never been treated better, and I\u2019ve been in and out of hospitals a lot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201c(This hospital) was absolutely the best place that I have ever received treatment. That\u2019s because of all of the doctors and the nurses and all those that contributed to my care. I just thank you, and God bless you.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Audio transcription #2<\/em><\/strong>: <\/em>\u201cFrom beginning to end, it was a totally dissatisfactory performance. They did not register me properly; they did not mail the application information in advance. When I got there, they blamed me that they had mailed it to me. I had to fill out the information while I was there. Even when I gave it to them, the information in the computer was actually information relevant to my father, who had been a patient twenty-six years previously.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\u201cSo they had my address listed as his address, which was twenty-six years out of date.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe actual care that I received was absolutely worthless. The person with whom I spoke had no idea how to respond to any of my questions, and quite frankly, I feel like I know more about sleep apnea than the person to whom I spoke. It was a complete waste of time; I wish I had not gone; and then, finally, I got billed 370 something dollars for the visit. I spoke to somebody for maybe fifteen minutes, and because of insurance, the bill to me ended up being adjusted to $132, which was a total waste of money.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Delivering What Patients Want<\/strong>: More than eighty-five percent \u2013 85.7 percent of senior healthcare executives surveyed during the first quarter of 2016 \u2013 indicate that, \u201cOur organization will be focused on improving patient experience during 2016.\u201d In a separate study, the Deloitte Contact Center Survey found that 62 percent of organizations view customer experience provided through contact centers as a competitive differentiator.<\/p>\n\n\n\nSignificant financial consequence secures the priority of improving patient experiences. Based on reports from CMS regarding national healthcare expenditures per capita, the cost of the loss of loyalty \u2013 of just one patient deciding not to come back to a specific healthcare organization for the rest of his or her life \u2013 could account for $400,000.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
By 2020, customer experience will overtake price and product as the key brand differentiator, according to Customer\u2019s 2020 Report. Additional research by The Executive Report on customer experience indicates that 79.7 percent of respondents believe the contact center is involved in defining the customer experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
FUEL Patient Experiences<\/strong>: The acronym FUEL provides an easy-to-remember guide to enable transformative patient experiences:<\/p>\n\n\n\nFocus Through the Patients\u2019 Eyes<\/em><\/strong>:<\/em> Patient experience (PX) mapping creates a flow chart of every single touchpoint from the patient\u2019s perspective. It identifies all the people, processes, environments, and technologies the patient encounters including call transfers, paperwork, and wait times. PX maps identify how contact centers can strengthen trust and improve handoffs of care.<\/p>\n\n\n\nOne leading healthcare contact center conducts their own ongoing patient satisfaction surveys to identify opportunities for improvement before the next CAHPS survey. By the time the CAPHS results are published, they have proactively improved their scores.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Unify Actions With Budgeted Priorities:<\/em><\/strong> Contact center PX hubs can choose to support only mission-critical priorities. They can drive physician referrals to the practices of newly employed physicians. They can also serve as a part of the standard of care for reducing preventable readmissions. As reported in the Q2 2016 issue of Provider Advisor<\/em>, one leading healthcare contact center reduced the organization\u2019s readmission rate by 25 percent, decreased CMS fines by nearly $2 million, and raised the kept appointment rate for post-discharge physician visits to 87 percent.<\/p>\n\n\n\nEnergize With Innovation<\/em><\/strong>:<\/em> One organization focused their contact center on physician-to-physician consults for referring physicians to the health system\u2019s specialists and sub-specialists. They received physician-to-physician referrals from dozens of states and several foreign countries. Annual, multi-million dollar results prompted the organization\u2019s president to declare the contact center as her \u201csecret weapon.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\nAnother organization locates a contact center ambassador in each of their emergency departments to capture patients without a PCP and keep them in network. This initiative that provides a steady stream of newly aligned patients referred to network primary care physicians. Another innovation is the inclusion of patient ratings and comments in online provider directories. The scores and comments about a particular physician from previous patients give prospective patients vital information and increase the likelihood of a good match between patient and provider.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Leverage Technology and Personalize the Experiences<\/em><\/strong>:<\/em> Contact centers can include in the patient record a list of the patient\u2019s health goals for proactive outreach. At discharge they can ask patients for permission to contact a family member or caregiver \u2013 and store that information in the patient record \u2013 to be accessed when it\u2019s time to make certain they are able to get to their follow-up physician appointment.<\/p>\n\n\n\nOne leading healthcare contact center offers a patient hotline that embraces patient trust while managing the organization\u2019s revenue cycle. Contact center agents work with patients to understand their best plan for them to remain in network, secure financial clearance, and arrange for a deposit prior to the visit. That organization celebrates \u201cphone hugs\u201d and is shifting the culture from processing transactions to building trust with patients through transformative, empathetic conversations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Empower your contact center \u2013 your patient experience hub team \u2013 to personalize the experiences they provide for callers by thinking carefully through the words they incorporate into their conversations. Ask team members to take the CAHPS survey most closely aligned to the patients they serve. Encourage them to take the survey as a typical patient based on a recent experience they have personally had as a patient. Inquire of each team member:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
- what they liked about the survey,<\/li>
- what was most challenging about the survey, and<\/li>
- what are three ways the contact center (patient experience hub) can assure the best possible experiences for patients?<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n
Opportunities Await: <\/strong>These examples are a snapshot of the consumer-driven shift that is transforming healthcare contact centers into centralized patient experience hubs. How would your patients benefit from integrating access touchpoints into a patient-centric communications center? How can your organization\u2019s historically generic transactions be replaced with personalized connections that build trust and create loyalty? Perhaps the intersection of contact centers and patient experience is precisely the right destination.<\/p>\n\n\n\nKatie Owens, MHA is vice president and practice leader, HealthStream Engagement Institute.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\nRichard D. Stier, MBA is vice president marketing Echo, a HealthStream Company.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\nSave<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\nSave<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\nSave<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\nSave<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By Katie Owens, MHA, and Richard D. Stier MBA A large, backlight sign at the entrance to a leading healthcare contact center boldly proclaims: … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[446],"tags":[462],"yoast_head":"\nContact Centers & Patient Experience<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Healthcare contact centers, the patient experience hub, provide personalized support, referrals, individualized follow-up, and patient coaching.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/answerstat.com\/article\/contact-centers-intersects-patient-experience\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Contact Centers & Patient 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