Building “Believability” in Patient Surveying
Athens-Limestone Hospital Uses the Customer Service Survey System to Retain Patients
Situation
Athens-Limestone Hospital is a 100+ bed hospital in north-central Alabama. Although the only hospital in the county, they were concerned about “out-migration” of patients to larger hospitals located about 30-45 minutes away. The existing written survey they were using did not provide the number of responses each month to give then reliable data to make decisions to improve services. Leadership did not have full confidence in the data. It did not meet the “believability” standard.
Action
Athens-Limestone Hospital partnered with The Jackson Group to conduct patient surveys using the hand-held PETS first in the ER and soon expanded the use to both their Inpatient and One Day Surgery units. As with all TJG survey services, the survey statements were customized to meet the needs of Athens-Limestone Hospital and its patient population.
To fully integrate the survey, and show the importance of patient feedback to the growth of the organization, leaders are actively involved in reviewing the patient feedback and implementing change. The hospital has a Service Excellence Committee, chaired by the CEO, that meets monthly to review survey results. The committee members are those clinical departments that receive patient feedback.
At each monthly meeting, the committee reviews total organization and department level feedback to look for opportunities for improvement. One of the charts they use in reviewing results is a Jahari Window that compares statement scores on a matrix showing how well the statement scored against its level of importance to the patient (correlation factor). This chart helps them tract those areas that have high patient expectations with relatively low performance compared to other statements.
The committee also set a response rate goal and a goal of a score of 95 for each of the three high level indicators: “Satisfaction with quality of care”, “Likelihood to return”, “Likelihood to recommend”. Departments meeting these goals for three months receive organization wide recognition.
To help each department meet their response goal the program coordinator checks the number of responses for each PETS weekly. Those results are sent to department leaders via email so they can be alerted to potential problems in achieving their goals.
Results
Athens-Limestone’s systematic integration of The Jackson Group’s patient surveying, leadership involvement, and department level recognition have resulted in reaching “believability” throughout the organization. The average monthly responses for the three clinical areas are:
- Inpatient – 35/department/month
- Emergency Room – 200/month
- One Day Surgery – 250/month
Each time a department reaches their response and score goals, they receive cookies and hospital-wide recognition. Also, a group photo and press release are published in the local paper.
Recently, One Day Surgery celebrated one year of achieving both response rate and score goals by having a pizza party for all employees.
Use of the PETS and high response rates has resulted in major changes in the Emergency Department.
- Staff rearranged patient flow to reduce wait times and get patients into treatment rooms faster.
- The waiting room was redesigned to increase patient comfort.
- There is a patient liaison in the ER to keep patients/families informed and attend to some simple patient needs.
Summary
Athens-Limestone’s experience shows that patient surveying can be much more than just meeting a regulatory requirement. Leadership involvement by setting goals and monitoring to show its importance, increasing response rates to provide believable data, and recognizing staff for achieving goals are important factors in implementing change in the hospital to better meet the needs of patients and make them loyal customers of the services you provide.