Hospital administrators and care team staff, particularly nurses, understand the importance of patient satisfaction. Patient satisfaction determines a hospital's success, and whether or not a patient is satisfied with their level of care is directly tied to how comfortable they are during their stay.

How can care teams increase this level of patient satisfaction? The answer lies in creating an open and welcoming atmosphere where patients can feel comfortable.

Here are a few ways that care teams can increase patient comfort as well as their level of care:

Be Transparent

The best way to increase patient comfort and satisfaction comes from understanding what is going on inside a patient's mind.

Patients, especially in the hospital setting, are rarely there because they want to be, and these experiences can often make them irritable and uncomfortable. People also tend to fear the unknown, and these feelings are amplified when patients do not understand what is happening when it comes to their treatment plan.

Transparency in the hospital setting is essential, and patients should always be well informed of what is going on when the care staff is out of the room. What tests are being conducted and why? When can the patient be discharged? What are the conditions of that discharge? Most importantly, patients want to know how they are progressing and if they can expect to get better soon.

Include Patients in their Care Plan

Besides not understanding what is going on behind the scenes, patients, and people in general, want to feel in control of what is going on around them.

When a patient is being cared for by hospital staff, they usually feel out of control and helpless. It's important for care teams to make patients feel like they are playing an active role in their progression. They don't have to self diagnose and prescribe themselves medicine, but it definitely helps to collaborate with patients and let them make some of the decisions when it comes to their care.

Make Information Readily Available

While transparency and collaboration can lead to increased patient satisfaction, nothing works better than creating a system of readily available information that keeps patients informed.

For years, nurses and other care team members have been using patient whiteboards in the hospital setting, and specialists highly recommend their use when it comes to things such as pain management, medication schedules, discharge dates and more.

At VividBoard, we customize patient room whiteboards for hospitals all across the country. Our designs are completely interchangeable, and no two boards we create are alike. Our team will work with you to create a whiteboard that relays all the right information to your patients, increasing their satisfaction and HCAHPS scores.

To learn more about our products, check out our Healthcare IdeaBook. You can also request a free sample of our whiteboard material. It is guaranteed to resist germs, ghosting and fading for its entire lifetime.