Improving the patient experience through provider communication skills building

The doctor’s interpersonal skills are arguably the most important to clinical outcome and patient experience. A peer-facilitated, communication skills-building course for physicians has been provided twice annually since its inception in 2004. The course was designed to increase personal awareness, as well as to help physicians develop new communication and interpersonal skills. Satisfaction data from 3,561 patient surveys on 80 providers who attended the course between 2006 and 2010 were analyzed one year before and one year after course participation. After completing the course, the proportion of “excellent” ratings of provider service (the highest rating on a 5-point scale) increased by 2% to 5.6%. The most notable improvements in service attributes under the provider’s control and covered in the course content were: involving the patient in care decisions (P \u3c .001), explaining medical condition (P=.002), and the provider’s knowing the patient as a person (P = .004). Other improvements were noted in courtesy (by 3.4%, P=.027), listening (by 3.5%, P=.036), and overall quality of care from the provider (by 3.5%, P=.027). Attributes not directly under the provider’s control – nursing quality, teamwork, spending enough time, and likelihood to recommend – were included in the analysis; year-over-year changes in these were not significant. Further, providers who participated in the course, when compared to those who did not, experienced an 18-percent decrease in patient complaints. Improvements in perception of excellent provider communication and other service-related behaviors suggest this training approach may be useful in improving patient satisfaction, patient experience, and payment in value-based models

Creating and sustaining a culture of accountability for patient experience

Improving the quality of the patient experience has become an imperative for healthcare organizations. Value-based payment models include patient perception data, and a negative experience can impact an organization’s finances. Sustainable improvement requires more than quick-fix cosmetic enhancements, ‘flavor-of-the-month’ service trainings, or bonuses for front-line staff. Organizations must actually improve the patient experience. Doing so requires a culture of accountability and a systematic framework for collecting and acting on patient perception data. This article revisits Mayo Clinic Arizona\u27s (MCA) 7-prong model for improving service quality: (1) multiple data sources to drive improvement; (2) accountability; (3) service consultation and improvement tools; (4) service values and behaviors; (5) education and training; (6) ongoing monitoring and control; and (7) recognition and reward. The focus of this article is Prong 2, creating and sustaining a culture of accountability for acting on service quality data to improve the patient experience. The model has demonstrated efficacy in specialty and primary care areas. Based on our experience since the model’s publication six years ago, we still contend that a comprehensive approach to improvement produces the best results. We have fine-tuned our approaches to leadership engagement, data transparency, reporting and accountability processes to ensure action on the data, and leveraging the committee structure and front-line staff. To help other organizations on their patient experience journey, we share the methodologies, tools and resources used to create and advance the culture of accountability for patient experience at MC