Building a High Performance Culture in Your ASC Part 2: Patient Experience & Satisfaction

This article builds upon the first part of the series that discussed how building a high performance culture for patient safety is critical for surgery centers and uses the same framework mentioned in Part 1 called “Define-Align-Build” adapted from partners at Bain and Company. It will also focus on how an ambulatory surgery center (ASC) can build a high performance culture centered on patient experience and satisfaction.

It is worth reiterating that high-performing surgery centers achieve better financial and non-financial results (such as patient satisfaction, employee engagement and retention) than their peers over a long period of time.

There are a few things that are common among many high performing institutions. They seem to be focused on three things:  

• Timely, clinically relevant outcomes data
• Transparency inside and outside the organization
• A constant focus on getting better/continuous improvement  

Here’s an example from Surgical Care Affiliates of how they focused on patient experience and satisfaction (stated on their website):

“SCA facilities optimize our patients’ experience. Our surgery centers and surgical hospitals offer patients easy scheduling, convenient access, short wait times, and billing transparency. Over 95% of our patients would recommend SCA’s facilities to a friend or colleague, and many patients specifically cite the distinctive friendliness and efficiency of our teammates.”

Another example is from Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) which set two bold long-term goals to improve the quality and safety of care for their patients:

• Eliminate preventable harm at BIDMC (physical and emotional)
• Achieve patient satisfaction that placing them among the top 2% of hospitals.

These are not easy goals. Achieving this degree of excellence requires continuous evaluation of performance, implementation of needed changes, and re-evaluation in multiple small ways and across all their departments.

To achieve top patient satisfaction, BIDMC surveys patients who have received care at their facilities and publishes their performance for the public. You can see that the kinds of data that BIDMC posts on its website are not just the standard Hospital Compare metrics but other data on a series of outcomes which are not required but important for benchmarking patient satisfaction at their facilities. Example of performance measures for ambulatory settings include:

• Access to Care
• Information About Wait Delays
• Experience with Care Provider
• Teamwork of Staff
• Likelihood to Recommend

Here are some strategies to build a high performance culture for patient experience and satisfaction in an ASC:

Patient Experience & Satisfaction

Making care truly centered around the patient is a key focus area in achieving a high-performing culture. The Outpatient and Ambulatory Surgery Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (OAS CAHPS) asks patients about important aspects of their experience at an ASC. The latest 2017-2018 national survey data revealed key ASC attributes. Of the 100,000+ patients who completed the survey:

• 97% reported that staff definitely gave care in a professional way and the facility was clean
• 91% reported that staff definitely communicated about what to expect during and after the procedure
• 88% gave the facility a rating of 9 or 10 on a scale from 0 (lowest) to 10 (highest)
• 86% reported YES they would DEFINITELY recommend the facility to family or friends

ASC’s are well-known for their low-cost and high-quality care, but there’s always something that can be done to make improvements.  Here are a few:

Define

Embrace patient-centered care. Making care truly centered around the patient directly impacts patient satisfaction. A patient-centered culture would result in a better patient experience. Leverage data to ensure the patient voice is heard throughout the organization.

Define the patient experience. Present everyone in your facility a clear picture of what the patient experience at your facility should look like.

Align

Put a focus on accountability. Accountability is key to achieving improvement goals, but it's not innate It has to be taught and reinforced during the process.

Safety, quality and a patient-centric approach are crucial elements of the patient experience.  Study how they interact. Aligning safety and quality within a patient-centered approach allows for optimization and organizational synergy when tackling patient experience initiatives.

Extend transformation to internal culture and leadership. A culture that embraces transformation—and extends to the top of the organization—can form a strong base for transformative initiatives. Train leadership to be communicative and transparent in order to embody the values that your center promotes.

Build

Focus on people (especially your staff). Staff satisfaction is just as important as patient satisfaction, given that physicians, nurses, and other ASC staff work directly with patients. Having a positive culture can improve both patient and staff satisfaction.

Treat employees as stakeholders. Embed the expectation that all employees — no matter role or rank — are accountable for their performance or actions and directly contribute to the patient experience.

Look at all interactions and touch points. Beyond the clinical experience, look at all other aspects where patients interact with your facility (touch points). Most of these touch points happen on site on your facility, however, online, phone calls, and emails are also a big chunk and form part of the overall patient satisfaction.

Leverage analytics and transparency. A strong data strategy can be the competitive difference between success and failure in your culture transformation.

Create opportunities for happiness. Healthcare is a tough environment to work in. Every person who interacts with your facility is sick, injured, or both. By creating opportunities for happiness as a regular part of work, your staff will create a better foundation to deliver an outstanding experience to patients. Simple smiles, fun activities, staff awards, recognition, and surprises could go a long way to creating a positive culture.

David Hamilton is the CEO of Mnet Health Services, a Business Process as a Service (BPAAS) and Financial Technology (FinTech) firm with a specialized focus on End-to-End Revenue Cycle Management, Care Coordination, and Quality Assurance in the healthcare industry.