Patient Experience

In the current drive for quality improvements, collecting and using patient feedback is more important than ever. The various dimensions of a patient’s experience span physical and emotional aspects – access and waiting times, being treated with respect, feeling involved in their care and being treated in clean surroundings. So how can you best measure the patient experience and its component parts?

• You can make use of the real time feedback you already receive – compliments and complaints, contacts with PALS. These will act as a useful ‘dipstick’ of what’s happening in that service and point to immediate issues for action.
• Representative tracking surveys can be conducted shortly after the episode of care. These will provide robust data that are representative of your patient population. For example, a short telephone survey with a carefully designed sample will let you track performance over time, compare between services and identify where service improvements are needed.
• Qualitative research can provide a more in depth understanding to help unpick aspects of the patient experience. For example, we know that dignity and respect is important, but what does it actually mean for patients? Or where patient ratings are lower than hoped for, why were patients unhappy with the service received?
• We can also look at the patient journey and the touch points along the way. How do the various interactions with the service influence patient perceptions and satisfaction? Rather than asking patients to rate predefined aspects of their care, we can explore the journey in the patient’s own words – what do they think is important?