Patient Satisfaction Linked to Hospital Employee Satisfaction

By Dale Wolf, Cincom

Patient satisfaction begins with patient access. As you will learn in this post, it is the interactions with hospital staff that drive patient satisfaction. As the first of the hospital staff to interact, you guessed it -- the people who admit patients in for services. How this interaction plays out establishes a pattern that in the end impacts patient satisfaction and the hospital's revenue cycle.

Research by Press Ganey shows a clear relationship between employee satisfaction, patient satisfaction, and quality of care as an interactive, reinforcing relationship. Not only do satisfied employees deliver better care—which results in better outcomes and higher patient satisfaction— but working for an organization that values patients and delivers quality drives employee satisfaction, retention, and loyalty.

Staff Interaction Leads to Patient Satisfaction

One such Press Ganey survey of 139,380 former patients of 225 hospitals revealed that none of the top 15 patient satisfaction factors had anything to do with the patient's health outcome. Instead the main factor was staff interaction, and there was a strong correlation between staff interaction and employee satisfaction.

Four Drivers

Analysis of data in the Press Ganey Employee Perspectives database has identified four key drivers of employee satisfaction: 

1. Overall organization impression
2. Participation
3. Senior leadership
4. Recognition

Facilities where employees evaluate these dimensions positively experience improvements in employee satisfaction, patient satisfaction, physician satisfaction, clinical quality, and other critical outcomes.

Putting Patients First

According to Susan Frampton, Laura Gilpin and Patrick Charmel in their book: Putting Patients First, listening to patients or answering their questions costs nothing. "It can be argued that negative interactions—alienating patients, being non-responsive to their needs or limiting their sense of control—can be very costly. Angry, frustrated or frightened patients may be combative, withdrawn and less cooperative—requiring far more time than it would have taken to interact with them initially in a positive way.”

What Makes this so Hard?

“Perhaps the simplest and most profound of all human interactions is KINDNESS. But if it is so simple, it is surprising how frequently it is absent from our healthcare environments. Many staff members report verbal ‘abuse’ by physicians, managers and coworkers.”

Back to Patient Registration and Finance

Put yourself in the patient's shoes (many hospital employees end up there whether they want to or not) and ask what kind of patient experience would you want. Staff that are kind (the patient is at a higher than normal level of stress already) and kindness and compassion can go a long way toward assuring patients that they are in the right place. Speed ... who wants to take a long time to get this paper work done? Accuracy ... treatment starts at the registration desk. Every fact must be correctly gathered. Clarity about financial obligations ... no one wants financial surprises.

Patient access staff and managers set the tone with every patient. Satisfied patients will tell their friends and family who visit them at the hospital how kind the staff is to them and how everyone pays attention to the slightest details. The word spreads.

Living Proof

Fortunately, for me, that's exactly the kind of hospital I go to. So I am living proof that the research by Press and Ganey and the wisdom in Putting Patients First is legitimate. My hospital is Bethesda North in Cincinnati. Every time my family has needed lab work, in-patient or outpatient services or ER ... everytime, the registration process is compassionately handled with speed and accuracy. And the staff that have cared for us after the registration process was over all delivered the same level of kindness. Sure it takes outstanding doctors, nurses and specialists ... sure it takes great front-office and clinical technology, but even more, it takes a caring culture.

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