Why Health IT VARs Could Soon Deal With The "Chief Patient Experience Officer"

By Megan Williams, contributing writer

Patient-centered health may seem simple, but it’s one that’s easy to foul up in the execution. While the concept is one that’s imitable through taking a look at other industries, getting healthcare organizations to a point of applied patient-centered health will require focused initiatives and invested leadership, frequently coming from a dedicated executive officer.

In Practice

Some facilities have already begun active programs geared toward treating patients as consumers. Hospitals & Health Networks recently featured Mount Desert Island Hospital in Bar Harbor, ME, for the advancements made toward patient-centered goals through their TeamSTEPPS initiative. While they don’t have a formal program around refocusing on the patient experience, they have been making a concerted effort to coordinate multiple patient touch points in creating an improved patient experience: “…we focus on what pieces of our processes are most important to adding value to our patients’ experience. Those are the parts we try to emphasize and the things that don’t add value to our patients we de-emphasize as we do process improvement.”

MU Stage 3

If you’ve taken the time to read the 700+ pages (summary available at Healthcare IT News) that make up the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) rule and the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC) certification rule around Meaningful Use (MU) Stage 3, you’ll notice a recurring core value of refining and improving the patient experience. This shows up in a number objectives that include:

• Facilitating patient access to electronic information
• Protecting patient information
• Encouraging electronic prescribing

Implementing any of these successfully will require cooperation across various departments and initiatives within your organization, and cannot be left to chance — centering the patient will require ownership, and that ownership will likely need to happen at the executive level.

Hospitals Hiring Chief Patient Experience Officers

Your clients are trying. Many are addressing patient-centered care in new, innovative ways, one of which is the creation of the increasingly common executive position of the Chief Patient Experience Officer.

The responsibility of this position is to think about the experience through the patient’s eyes — from the time they first schedule their appointment until they have returned home after treatment. The job takes the mind-set similar to that of a hotel concierge, with many hospitals hiring staff from organizations like the Ritz Carlton and Four Seasons to address issues that impact patient perception of care.

Contrary to what many of your clinician clients believe, care outcomes are not the primary driver in patients’ perceptions of their care experiences. Issues like wait time weigh more heavily than whether their cancer is in remission. To properly address this, facilities have implemented solutions including:

• Telemedicine
• “Disney FastPass”-style apps that give patients slips to return when the doctor is ready
• Flexible appointment setting
• Home-based informational solutions

Getting Off To The Best Start

In addressing patient-centered initiatives, the most important thing your clients can do is pay attention to the needs of their specific communities. While there are generic rules around improving patient experiences, a truly connected organization will have to take into consideration not only the services they offer and the current flow of their care experience, but also their patient mix in regard to age, race, income, reasons for treatment, and multiple other factors that will redefine “patient-centered care” for their particular circumstance.