What do patients say about your healthcare brand, practice, or facility? While that’s an important question, finding the answer is not always easy. 

The healthcare industry accounts for roughly 30% of the world’s data volume. Medical and clinical records make up the bulk of that information.  

But some of it is patient feedback data. Patient feedback in healthcare provides valuable insights into the service provider’s performance. 

Understanding your patients’ experiences is crucial for driving service quality improvements. It also boosts patient satisfaction. Feedback points out what you’re doing right and what you’re doing wrong. You can also turn patient feedback into a powerful healthcare marketing tool. 

FROM ONE OF OUR PARTNERS: How to Market a Medical Practice 

This article shares proven strategies for collecting and utilizing patient feedback. We’ll also go over the nuances and challenges of collecting patient experience data. 

Let’s learn how to leverage patient feedback to improve service quality and so much more. 

The Value of Patient Feedback 

Why does your health service need patient feedback? 

Quality of service matters a great deal to all patients. Every patient wants to feel they’re getting their money’s worth. And they want to be confident that their health concerns are in capable, caring hands.  

That’s what makes genuine feedback one of the most valuable things you can get from your patients.  Without patient feedback, you can’t be sure that you’re hitting all the marks. Here are four reasons why patient feedback matters: 

1. Improved patient satisfaction 

Gathering patient feedback is a great opportunity to learn about your patients’ experiences. You get to know what’s important to your patients and what they really care about. 

For instance, you’ll quickly pick up on common patient pain points. Patients often complain about delays, rudeness, rushing, and reproach. From there, you can make the changes necessary to improve patient satisfaction. 

Also, responding to a patient’s feedback makes them feel heard and valuable. And it gives you a chance to effectively address their dissatisfaction. 

RELATED ARTICLE: Key Strategies for Improving the Patient Experience 

2. Enhanced communication and trust 

Asking for and responding to patient feedback is a form of patient engagement. And a powerful one at that. It opens a more candid line of communication. It’s a way for patients to talk freely about their experiences. 

Subsequently, open communication fosters trust. 

3. Identification of areas for improvement 

Patient feedback can reveal key opportunities for improvements and where your team can update processes to help both you and your patients. 

Evaluating patient feedback means looking at things from the patient’s point of view. This perspective can guide you in fine-tuning your services. It also helps you provide an experience that better suits your target patient group.  

Considering your patients’ perspective leads to happier patients and better patient retention. 

4. Positive impact on practice reputation 

Gathering and acting on your patients’ feedback boosts your practice’s reputation. 

In one survey, 90% of the respondents said they use online reviews to evaluate physicians. And 43% said they’d pay out of pocket for a healthcare provider with favorable reviews. 

Patient feedback certainly has the power to make or break your healthcare practice. A big part of your brand’s reputation and appeal hinges on what past patients think about your services. 

FROM ONE OF OUR PARTNERS: How to Create a Positive Brand Reputation 

Strategies for Collecting Patient Feedback 

There are many different ways you can collect feedback from patients. Each method has its pros and cons in terms of simplicity, anonymity, and reliability. 

Let’s look at the three main ways of obtaining patient feedback: 

Surveys and Questionnaires 

Patient satisfaction surveys are pretty well-established as an effective patient feedback collection tool. These written or digital surveys ask the patient questions about their experience.  

These are the types of questions to ask in a patient experience survey: 

• “How long did you have to wait before a doctor attended to you?” 
• “Did you find it easy to navigate our facility?” 
• “Were you happy with the doctor allocated to you?” 
• “On a scale of 1-5, how would you rate us?” 
• “How likely are you to recommend our services to a friend?” 

Patient surveys are incredibly versatile and flexible. There are many powerful online survey tools to help you collect patient feedback. Even issuing short paper-based surveys in the waiting area will do the trick. 

Focus Groups and Interviews 

Interviewing patients is another great way to get feedback about your practice. After a visit, ask patients to volunteer a few minutes to answer a few quick questions. Or you can prepare a few questions to ask the patients at the checkout desk. 

You could also use a focus group. A focus group is a small group of select individuals that represent a larger population. It can be composed of patients, leads, or even outside observers. Once assembled, ask the group questions about your healthcare services. 

Setting up a focus group is much more demanding than running interviews. First, you must assemble your focus group in a comfortable, neutral environment. You want everyone to feel free to share their sentiments.  

Second, you’ll need an independent party to interview the group. And finally, focus group meetings go on for quite a while. 

However, the results may be well worth the effort, especially for new practices. Focus groups often provide more nuanced and natural feedback compared to solo interviews. 

Real-Time Feedback Mechanisms 

You can collect patient feedback with your website, social media channels, and emails. Utilize digital tools to collect insightful feedback data. These can collect data from various touchpoints along the patient’s journey. 

For instance, implement feedback pop-up forms on your website. Pop-ups can request feedback from patients before they leave your site, like when someone books an appointment or makes a payment. 

You can also try feedback features on social media platforms. For example, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter, all offer feedback tools. 

Ensuring Patient Anonymity and Confidentiality 

Maintaining privacy is crucial when collecting and working with patient data. Privacy and anonymity are not only legal requirements but essential for eliminating biases in patient feedback. 

So, it’s important to be careful when collecting feedback from patients. Do not ask patients to share sensitive clinical or identity information. The feedback should focus only on the patient’s experience. 

Additionally, safeguarding patient information means handling feedback data cautiously and storing it securely. Ensure you have solid data security and privacy measures in place. This guarantees patient safety and anonymity. 

Some patients are understandably reluctant to share feedback information with healthcare professionals. Help your patients feel comfortable and confident sharing their opinions. 

Reassure them that all feedback is completely anonymous. It can help to explain your privacy policies to the patient.  

RELATED ARTICLE: 5 Healthcare Data Security Threats to Watch For 

Analyzing and Interpreting Patient Feedback 

Collecting patient feedback is only the first step in your practice’s journey to improvement. The second step involves making sense of the feedback data and putting it to good use. 

You must review patient feedback to draw meaningful and actionable insights. This means organizing, analyzing, and interpreting the feedback. How you analyze and interpret the data will depend on the nature, structure, and source of the feedback.  

But regardless of how your patient feedback is structured or sourced, you need to do the following three things: 

1. Summarize the feedback 

Condense the feedback data into more easily manageable chunks. Start by grouping related questions together. Then, combine the questions into summarized data units by averaging closely related responses. 

After summarizing the feedback, you’ll start to see variations in patient responses. 

2. Use statistical models to represent the data 

Establish a systematic approach to data analysis using statistical methods. Depending on the kind of data you’re working with, there are a few ways you can look at it.  

Here are a few examples of potential ways to represent patient feedback: 

• Percentages 
• Ratios 
• Charts (graphs, pie charts, bubble charts, etc.) 
• Tables 

A visual or mathematical representation is helpful for interpreting data. It makes identifying and quantifying patterns in patient responses easier. This should give you insights into how patients feel about your healthcare practice. 

3. Run a sentiment analysis 

It can be difficult to read for tone when working with text-based feedback. A sentiment analysis helps by detecting the emotional tone of a message.  

This allows you to determine if it’s positive, negative, or neutral. It analyzes not just the words but the passion, intensity, and attitude in each expression. 

With technical advancements, sentiment analysis can be done using AI tools. Such tools are equipped with natural language processing and text analysis features.  

They typically assign a confidence level to the truthfulness of every feedback statement. Truth is essential in measuring healthcare quality. 

FROM ONE OF OUR PARTNERS: 5 Ways to Quickly Boost Your Customer Feedback Strategy 

Implementing Changes Based on Feedback 

The main goal of a patient feedback system is to improve the quality of care using patient inputs for all your patients. To do that, you must leverage the responses to implement positive change. 

Here’s how to drive change based on patient feedback: 

Prioritize Areas for Improvement 

First things first: address what you or your staff are doing wrong. 

Your patient feedback surveys should reveal most patient-facing shortcomings of your practice. Some issues, such as delays, complexities, and hidden costs, can be easily solved.  

But more complex issues might warrant further research. Examples might include problems such as staff incompetence or rude language. 

You may not be able to improve in all areas immediately. So, prioritize the most pressing complaints. Start on the issues raised most frequently.  

You should also focus on those most detrimental to your patient care reputation. Then, work your way down to the least weighty complaints. 

Involve Your Staff in Implementing Changes 

It’s important to involve your staff when making improvements of any kind. But it’s especially important for those based on patient feedback. 

Hold regular meetings to share patient complaints. In these meetings, discuss ways to improve healthcare quality. With everyone contributing, you’ll produce effective and lasting solutions.  

Plus, collaborating on productivity issues strengthens your work culture. It instills a strong sense of responsibility and accountability across the organization. 

Commend Exceptional Service 

Patient feedback is not always full of complaints. Patients will sometimes name departments, doctors, or even subordinate employees for exceptional service. That’s a big win for your practice. 

Be sure to recognize those praised in patient feedback. Give credit where credit is due. Plus, it shows appreciation and encourages others to serve patients better. 

Communicate Improvements to Your Patients 

Let your patients know that you’ve made improvements to your practice, thanks to their input. It will make the patients feel their voice is heard and take their feedback seriously.  

And knowing that their feedback matters, your patients will be more willing to speak up in the future. 

Monitoring the Impact of Changes 

Acting on patient feedback is an ongoing effort. You must continuously assess the changes you’ve made.  

Without regular assessment, you won’t know if the changes are improving your practice. Also, you’ll have to adjust your patient satisfaction strategies regularly. As new feedback comes in, you’ll learn more about how to continue improving.  

What’s the best way to gauge the impact of various improvements? Start tracking key performance indicators (KPIs). Patient retention is a good example of a measurable KPI.  

Track and compare patient return rates before and after implementing the change. That should give you an idea of where you are with patient satisfaction. 

RELATED ARTICLE: 3 Timeless Patient Retention Strategies to Keep Them Coming Back 

Here is a list of other KPIs worth tracking: 

• Average patient wait time 
• Positive feedback-to-negative feedback ratio 
• Number of new appointments 
• Patient satisfaction score 
• Staff-to-patient ratio 
• Cancelled appointments 
• Inbound referrals 
• Clinical error rate 

Overcoming Challenges in Collecting and Implementing Patient Feedback 

Collecting and using patient feedback is not without its challenges. Let’s look at the three most common issues you might face. 

Resistance From Staff or Stakeholders 

People are naturally resistant to change—it’s simply human nature. But change is inevitable in business. There are several valid reasons why employees, managers, and stakeholders might resist change. Chief among those reasons is a lack of awareness. 

When making changes based on patient feedback, explain why it’s good for the practice. And support your proposals with irrefutable facts. 

Addressing Negative Feedback Constructively 

Negative feedback is not necessarily bad feedback. In fact, negative feedback can be more useful than positive feedback. It points you to areas needing improvement, which allows you to make your practice better. 

Do not dismiss negative feedback. Respond to it thoughtfully and let it open your eyes to flaws in your medical practice. Take negative feedback as constructive criticism—an opportunity to work on patient satisfaction. 

Continuous Improvement in the Feedback Collection Process 

Your patient feedback system must continuously evolve with the growing business. That means developing newer and better data collection and feedback review methods. 

As we mentioned earlier, collecting and leveraging patient feedback is a continuous process. You have to regularly review and improve your feedback sources and analytics. Focus on getting more patients to share expressive, honest feedback. 

Conclusion 

Patient feedback is crucial for improving the quality of your health services. Your patients can help you draw meaningful insights.  

Such insights will help you find areas for improvement and drive positive change. All you need is the right patient feedback collection and utilization strategy. 

However, incorporating patient feedback in your practice can be challenging. It’s also an ongoing effort that needs constant nurturing and advancement. But that’s a small price to pay for providing your patients with a better experience.