How patient feedback can improve healthcare

In the ever-evolving world of healthcare, the importance of patient feedback has ascended to new heights. As individuals increasingly turn to online reviews to choose and evaluate healthcare providers, the insights gleaned from patient experiences have become invaluable. In today’s healthcare landscape, patients resemble customers, especially as the trend towards private care grows. They prioritise the dependability and quality of their healthcare providers and are increasingly vocal about sharing their experiences to ensure their needs are met.

But patient feedback is not just beneficial for prospective patients; it’s also vital for healthcare providers to understand the level of care they offer. More than just a system of star ratings, patient feedback is a rich resource of insights that healthcare providers can harness to enhance their services. In this blog, we will explore how patient input can contribute to the enhancement of healthcare services and how you can capture patients’ insights to understand more about their needs. 

8 in 10 leave healthcare providers due to poor in-person experiences

Healthcare providers not tapping into patient feedback are missing a crucial insight into their patients’ experiences. It’s common for patients to leave a clinic or a medical office without expressing their true opinions, particularly if they’re unhappy with the care they received. This silence often leads to a change in providers. In fact, 36% of patients have switched healthcare providers in the last two years, with 8 in 10 of them mainly due to poor experiences or lack of communication.

Data from 2021 reveals a shift in patient behaviour. In that year, about 30% of patients opted for a new healthcare provider, up from 26% in 2017. A quarter of these changes were driven by dissatisfaction with care, showing a notable increase from 18% in 2017. This tendency is especially strong among younger generations, like Gen Zers and millennials, who are six times more likely to seek new providers than older patients.

Trustpilot reports that 95% of people who were dissatisfied with a service would return if their issues were promptly and effectively addressed. Active collection and analysis of patient feedback enable providers to identify specific areas needing improvement, directly aligning changes with patient desires and needs. 

20% of negative feedback focuses on waiting rooms and delays

Doctify’s analysis of healthcare reviews from the UK, UAE, Germany, and Austria has highlighted several key areas where healthcare providers can enhance their services. By focusing on patient feedback, especially on areas frequently mentioned for improvements, providers have a significant opportunity to make adjustments that are both purposeful and patient-centred

A major contributor to patient dissatisfaction is the management of waiting times. Patients often understand that delays are part of busy medical settings, but their frustration arises from how these waiting periods are handled. They feel that their emotional, physical, and environmental needs are overlooked during waits.

Patient feedback plays a crucial role here. It goes beyond highlighting issues, offering a guide for positive change. While quantitative data like waiting list lengths provide some insights, the real impact comes from patients’ personal experiences. Focusing on these experiences allows healthcare providers to develop strategies that effectively manage waiting times and enhance patient satisfaction.

To make waiting rooms better for patients, healthcare providers can do a few key things: make the area comfortable with things like free Wi-Fi and comfy chairs, clearly tell patients about any wait times, keep them busy with things to read or do, and make check-ins quicker with digital tools.

Having an accessible method for patients to provide feedback can significantly enhance their overall experience. By displaying posters or framed images of your Doctify QR codes, and placing business cards with the review QR code in the waiting area, you make it easy for patients to share their thoughts. This approach not only shows that you are keen to listen to their feedback, but also that you value their opinions and are committed to using their input to improve healthcare services.

What needs to be improved in patient care?

While the waiting room experience and delays are critical areas of focus, they are not the only aspects that need attention in healthcare settings. Patient feedback collected through Doctify often highlights other key areas where improvements can significantly enhance their future experiences. This includes reception experience, appointment management, communication throughout their healthcare journey, pricing transparency and medical explanations. That’s why listening to patient feedback is so important as it helps you gain a better understanding of what patients like and dislike about your services, allowing you to focus on enhancing their experiences in those specific areas.

Providers utilising Doctify have the opportunity to optimise their profiles by listing fees for appointments and treatments, as well as including information about accepted insurers. This transparency in pricing on their Doctify profiles can significantly help patients in better understanding and anticipating healthcare costs, contributing to a more informed and satisfactory healthcare experience.

How Doctify can help you capture patient feedback seamlessly

Collecting patient feedback is more than just a checkbox – it’s a smart strategy. It’s about pinpointing what’s effective and what needs improvement, ultimately leading to increased patient satisfaction. This focus is crucial, not only for retaining current patients but also for attracting new ones, as 90% of patients use online reviews to evaluate providers.

1. Capture all experiences through automated feedback collection

Integrating automated feedback collection with practice management software ensures that every patient you see will receive a review link, prompting them to share their experiences anonymously. This streamlined process simplifies the task of collecting patient feedback as it not only minimises administrative efforts but also establishes a consistent and efficient system for gathering a steady stream of valuable patient insights. With 70% of patients willing to leave a review when asked, this automated approach effectively harnesses patient feedback to continuously enhance healthcare services.

By setting up automated feedback collection, you get to hear what your patients think about the care they received right after their visit. This way, you can quickly identify and address any issues. Plus, it allows you to effectively track the improvements you’ve implemented, ensuring continuous enhancement of your healthcare services.

Find out more about how you can automate your patient review requests.

2. Filter reviews for comprehensive analysis

With Doctify, you can filter reviews by specific tags, enabling a much more thorough analysis. This functionality gives providers a clearer picture of care quality and patient satisfaction across various conditions, locations, and consultants, allowing them to make well-informed and impactful changes in patient care. By focusing on areas identified as needing improvement, these targeted adjustments ensure that enhancements are effectively aligned with patient needs and expectations.

For example, if you’re a dermatologist using Doctify to collect patient feedback, you might discover that patients with a specific condition, such as eczema, frequently express dissatisfaction with the clarity of your explanations. This insight can guide you to refine how you communicate treatment plans, perhaps by incorporating visual aids, simplifying medical jargon, or allocating more time for patient questions. By addressing this specific concern, you can enhance understanding and satisfaction among your eczema patients, directly improving their experience and the effectiveness of their care.

3. Create custom surveys for deeper patient insights

With Doctify’s customisable survey tool, you can explore specific areas of patient care in greater depth. By adding unique questions tailored to your services, you can obtain detailed insights beyond what standard feedback forms might reveal. These questions might range from assessing administrative efficiency and the finance or billing process to understanding the subtleties of patient-staff interactions.

Providers using Doctify Surveys often ask questions about the more personal aspects of patient care. Common examples include:

• Were you involved as much as you wanted to be in decisions about your care and treatment?
• Did you find someone on the hospital staff to talk to about your worries and fears?
• Were you given enough privacy when discussing your condition or treatment?
• Did a member of staff tell you about medication side effects to watch for when you went home?
• Did the hospital staff tell you who to contact if you were worried about your condition or treatment after you left the hospital?

While these detailed responses are confidential and not visible online, they are a goldmine for internal evaluation and strategic improvements.