Qualitative Versus Quantitative Data

ntravis    Uncategorized    

The debate over qualitative versus quantitative data is heating up in health care as providers look for ways to effectively measure and manage patient satisfaction in an increasingly competitive market place.  The answer doesn’t live in choosing one or the other.  It is found in learning how to marry the benefits of each in a way that strengthens the patient/provider relationship.  Each functions best when it is complimented by the strengths of the other -  Quantitative data to help us understand our existing health care world and Qualitative data to help us understand the perceptions, feeling and experiences that sway satisfaction in one direction or the other.

Healthcare facilities have to own their data!

ntravis    Uncategorized    

Effective measurement of patient satisfaction is much more than just sending out surveys and aggregating results.  When effectively woven into a quality program, it allows a provider a final opportunity to connect with the patient, determine what would foster patient loyalty in the future and catch those issues that have angered patients but slipped through the patient complaint process.  An effective patient satisfaction system is an integral component in protecting patient/provider relationships and fostering stronger ones.  The ability to customize and personalize surveys will become increasingly important as the patient/provider relationship enters an era of value based purchasing and is impacted by a significant generational shift in consumers.

Soft quality needs to become a thing of the past!

ntravis    Patient Satisfaction    

Providers that manage patient satisfaction measurement as one more form of soft quality in today’s environment choose to increase their risk of ending up as a casualty along the highway to health care’s future.  An activity falls into the category of “soft quality” when its design and implementation creates the perception of action without it ever challenging status quo.  While anything can become a form of soft quality, the most common activities that fall into this category are mass education, the creation of new forms, discipline of the frontline work force, auditing and committee meetings.

Soft quality became popular in health care in the 1980s when providers realized that they could satisfy surveyors with it without having to really drive change into their organizations.  A provider could show surveyors that it had held 87 mandatory inservices, created 70 new forms, disciplined 214 employees, done dozens of  audits and held 102 committee meetings since their last visit and, too often, the surveyors would go away happy without ever asking the critical questions of what difference it all made for the patients and workforce and if the cost/benefit factor made it worth the investment.

For far too many healthcare providers, patient satisfaction became a form of soft quality. They send out the surveys, collect the data, aggregate the data and look at the data.  Yet, that data never or rarely contributes to the creation of value-adding change that is tangible from the patient’s perspective or worth the investment.  Too often the questions are too soft to gain any real knowledge and surveys rely to heavily on pulse questions that allow providers to decide what they want to offer patients rather than knowing what the patient wants.  Providers who cherry pick their questions to ensure good data engage in the worst kind of soft quality.

Providers who accept soft quality in their patient satisfaction activities are their own greatest victims in today’s market.  A healthy and robust patient satisfaction system that asks tough questions is a provider’s gateway into the minds and perceptions of its constituents.  When done wisely, it becomes a powerful business tool for understanding what patient’s perceive to be a provider’s strengths, weaknesses, threats and opportunities.  It provides the value-adding information that let’s a provider with a generative culture for quality to move to the front of the pack by playing to its strengths and turning weaknesses, threats and opportunities into value-adding improvements through change.

Patients want feel well cared for while also feeling personally cared about!

ntravis    Patient Satisfaction    

Patient satisfaction involves the special ability of a healthcare provider to make patients feel well cared for while also making them feel personally cared about inside their patient experiences.   In spite of all of the pressures in today’s healthcare environment and what frequently seems like no-win situations for providers, it is becoming increasingly important for providers to understand what promotes patient satisfaction and, more importantly, patient loyalty as satisfaction and loyalty are two very different things.  As healthcare providers move deeper into an environment of escalating consumerism and competition driven by a generational shift in healthcare consumers and value based purchasing, they must better understand what can differentiate them as the preferred provider.  An effective patient satisfaction system plays a key role in gaining access to that information.

There is a common misperception in health care that says that which gets measured, gets improved.

ntravis    Patient Satisfaction    

One of the most important roles of an effective patient satisfaction system is to support the provider in measuring the effectiveness of its existing patient care delivery systems and approaches to service.  It is one of multiple data collection sources that provide valuable information about how well patients perceive a provider is doing in being what it needs to be in meeting patient needs for today and keeping pace with the ever changing environment to be exactly what the patients will need for tomorrow.   When brought together with the goal of gaining knowledge, the data from patient satisfaction measurement tools combined with information from other systems such as incident reports, patient complaints, occurrence reports and informal interviews provides the kind of insight necessary to effectively evaluate current performance and focus on the right areas for improvement – those areas that will move patient perception and loyalty in the desired direction.

The data that comes out of quality-related systems such as patient satisfaction is only the first step.  There is a common misperception in health care that says that which gets measured, gets improved.  The reality is that that which gets managed with the goal of improvement gets improved and measurement is the first step.   The data that comes out of a patient satisfaction system is nothing more than raw data until it is reduced to the kind of information from which one can gain knowledge and determine the best next moves in taking quality and patient perceptions to a better place.  It then only has value when it starts the change reaction that actually moves quality and patient perception to that better place.