Nearly three-quarters of healthcare CFOs see patient experience as the most important growth priority for their organizations, according to a Grant Thornton survey of more than 100 CFOs.
The survey asked CFOs what their top priorities were for growth and respondents ranked the following:
1. Patient experience enhancements: 73%
2. Expanding into new markets: 65%
3. Launching new services: 64%
4. Increasing community outreach: 60%
5. Mergers and acquisitions: 38%
"Understanding why patient experience is a top priority starts with realizing that growth within a healthcare organization is dependent on serving as many patients as you can," said John Summerlin, the managing director of operations transformation for healthcare at Grant Thornton. "Growth occurs either through increasing the ability to see new patients within existing facilities or by enlarging the capacity of a healthcare system, either through acquisition or expansion."
Health systems that provide an elite patient experience are more likely to keep patients within their network for a variety of services. Patients may see a primary care physician within the network and if they have a good experience, they'll also use network physicians for specialty care, lab work and when an emergency arises.
Mr. Summerlin said heightening patient experience means CFOs are investing in a "patient loyalty" model. The patient loyalty model will require strategic transformation and CFOs see technology as a prime tool to better understand patient and consumer behavior. The most commonly cited word in the survey was "technology."
"Healthcare organizations should look at potential patients as healthcare consumers, which ultimately means thinking about the consumer experience of their patients," said Adrianne Boylen, a partner in Grant Thornton's healthcare advisory practice. "That naturally leads to a focus on how technology can improve that experience and bolster patient loyalty."
The elevated patient experience doesn't stop with the CFOs; CEOs are also keenly aware of how critical patient experience is to their strategic growth. Joon Lee, MD, CEO of Emory Healthcare in Atlanta, told Becker's his system is doubling down on investment in the patient-facing workforce for better pay and working conditions, as well as making technology investments such as ambient listening so clinicians can better connect with patients during visits.
"We are focused on leveraging technology that, of course, must deliver better clinical outcomes and improved patient experience, but also must increase the overall efficiency, compensating for increased overall labor costs, and must improve the working conditions of the clinical workforce," Dr. Lee said. "This last component, an overt emphasis on the impact of technology on daily workflow and administrative burden of individual frontline workers, has not been emphasized nearly enough in the past."'
James Terwilliger, president of the Puget Sound Market in the Northwest Region of Chicago-based CommonSpirit Health, also noted the most important challenge for the next year will be ensuring high quality and an exceptional patient experience.
"We have the technology to transform healthcare delivery," he said. "We are already demonstrating excellent clinical outcomes and patient satisfaction, so I'm excited to see what more we can do. I believe that leveraging data is going to be a key driver in allowing us to better serve our region by maximizing our capacity, including staff deployment, resource flow, throughput and patient volumes."