In January 30 2020, India recorded its first case for Corona Virus popularly known as Covid19. Since then India has seen a series of lockdowns and as we inch towards somewhat of a partial recovery, the question around the state of our healthcare system has become centre stage again.

Since the 1940’s where the Bhore committee gave its recommendations for developing the healthcare structure in India, as a nation we have been playing catch up with demand far exceeding the supply in terms of doctors, diagnostic equipment, hospital beds and medicines.

In addition the wellness programs have been struggling and preventive measures have not been very successful. In this context the corner stone of the healthcare system in India has become the hospital.

What determines a successful healthcare intervention is patient experience. Today with the advent of telehealth and the guidelines given by Medical Council of India, it becomes even more important for hospitals to focus on patient experience and add to the growth of the industry.

What determines a successful healthcare intervention is an excellent patient experience #Healthcare #DigitalHealth

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What is Patient Experience?

Private hospitals have long tracked patient satisfaction ratings, but they didn’t always carry great significance. While all hospitals want happy patients, most hospitals have been historically plagued with the “doctor knows best” mentality — a mentality where clinical outcomes outweigh “touchy-feely” indicators such as patient satisfaction or overall patient experience.

However, in recent years, some leading institutions in India have begun to focus more heavily on providing an outstanding patient experience. Drivers for this include growing consumerism and transparency for healthcare services and increased interest from both consumers and providers in patient-centred care.

Why Patient Experience is important to Hospitals?

Healthcare consumers increasingly view their experience with a provider as a key consideration for determining if they’ll return to or recommend the provider, largely because it remains one of the few ways consumers can differentiate providers. Over the past few decades, clinical outcomes have improved dramatically, and patients no longer view favourable outcomes as a key differentiator as these are expected. What remains is the patient’s overall experience, which encompasses everything from customer service to patient-centeredness and care coordination among providers. 

Also given the growth of Tele Health, it would become even more important for hospitals to focus on patient experience in order to create a favourable experience and create the hook that would bring patients and others in the community back to the hospital.

Key Parameters of Patient Experience in a Hospital

While there are many parameters that determine patient experience, we have tried to list down a few key ones that might influence the satisfaction index more than the others.

1. Patient Appointment Experience
2. Patient Online Portal
3. Social Media and Digital Out Reach
4. Facility for the In-Patient Service and Emergency Service
5. Patient’s Access to medical Records
6. Patient Information
7. Clinical Outcomes
8. Value Added Service

While many of these parameters are difficult to understand or assess, as part of this report we have identified Social Media as a parameter that we would like to evaluate. In order to do so, we have identified 6 Hospitals across India. These hospitals are

1. AIIMS
2. Apollo Hospitals
3. Fortis
4. Manipal Health
5. Narayana Health
6. Kokilaben Dhirubhai Ambani Hospital

We have tried to mix it up between hospitals from the government sector and private sector and also among general hospitals and super speciality hospitals. Below is our analysis of the key parameters between the social media presence of these major hospitals.

I believe that Social media is an indicative parameter. It shows whether there is a foundational maturity in the digital program of the hospital. Also, a lot of patient experience is visible by the comments and interactions with the hospital’s social media channels.

The findings of our analysis are captured in the report below.

Download the Report

Would be happy to discuss and see how you can build your digital experience for patient engagement. Do write in to discuss.