Results show that patient experience has a strong association with hospital financial performance as measured by margins and Return on Assets (ROA). Over 50 percent of patients surveyed said that they would likely switch hospitals due to inadequate information-sharing and communication, and difficulty in reaching a health professional by phone or email.^1″

Patient experience can shape hospital financial performance

Payers looking for better value are also helping to drive hospitals to focus on patient experience: Programs such as Medicare’s Hospital Value-Based Purchasing Program (VBP) are financially rewarding hospitals that have better patient- reported experience scores. As a result, patient experience scores for factors as diverse as nighttime noise level and doctors’ and nurses’ communication skills have become a key hospital performance measure.

Because of the patient and payment factors, one might expect that hospitals with better patient experience scores might perform better financially – but the relationship has not been well studied. To gain greater insight into the association between better patient-reported experience scores and hospital financial performance, the Deloitte Center for Health Solutions conducted descriptive and regression analyses using the most widely tracked measures of patient experience – the Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HCAHPS) scores – and examined their association with hospital performance measures such as net and operating margins and return on assets (ROA). To more clearly delineate the contribution of patient experience, Deloitte Center for Health Solutions controlled for hospital and local area characteristics that can also affect hospital performance, including hospital ownership, location, teaching status, payer and patient case mix.^1″

The RNDS platform is empowering patients to share in real-time their hospital experience

The RNDS App platform serves as a tool to help both patients and healthcare professionals deliver the type and quality of care that helps improve outcomes, reduce errors, cost, and improve HCAHPS scores. Given the market shift towards patient-centered care and renewed payer emphasis on patient experience as a core element of care quality, our experience suggests that hospitals are investing in the mechanisms, tools, and technology necessary to better engage patients and enhance patient experience – from coordinating care, making patient healthcare professional communication easier, to empowering patients to share in real-time their hospital experience in order that providers can correct any issues before they become serious.

¹Original Article from Deloitte “The value of patient experience”