Caring for hospital patients goes well beyond providing medical treatment. Patients must also be treated as paying customers, and their satisfaction with their service is key to a hospital's financial success. But is it possible for hospitals to provide patients with both good medical care and satisfactory service? Is there a balance that can be struck between making patients happy and keeping them healthy?

What Do Hospital Patients Need?

Outside of general health and wellbeing, patients need to be satisfied with the time they spend in the hospital. Care teams are often rushed, and they do the best they can to give patients the best medical treatment possible. But it's important to remember that customer service and patient satisfaction is important, as well. Patients are, first and foremost, people with needs.

What do patients need?

Surveys have shown that patient complaints can range from sleep interruptions to dirty rooms and even feeling disengaged from their care. Many of the complaints boil down inferior customer service, particularly when it comes to staff/patient communication. These types of complaints can affect hospital HCAHPS scores.

What Can Be Done?

With so many complaints arising from poor communication, it's apparent that, besides good treatment, the thing that patients want more than anything else is to be informed.

Hospitals are busy places when care teams are often rushed and stretched to their work limit. But taking the time to keep patients in the loop is essential to providing the best care and service possible. Patients want to know where they stand regarding their care, what can and can't be done during their stay, where to direct questions and any other number of issues.

There are three major areas where patients can be informed: intake, treatment and discharge.

Upon intake, patients need to know:

• Why they are being admitted

• What they are suffering from

• What can be done about it

• How they can reach out to family and friends (and visiting times)

• How long they can expect to be staying

During treatment, patients need to know:

• Why they are taking certain medications and when

• Why certain procedures and test are being conducted

• How and when they can go about getting food, using the restroom, watching TV, etc.

• Which staff members they can direct questions to

Upon discharge, patients need to know:

• What their post-treatment care will be

• Warning signs that indicate they need to contact a doctor

• Who they can contact with questions

• Normal side effects of medications, treatment, etc.

The Most Effective Form of Patient Communication

The method of delivering information is just as important as they information being presented to patients. In order to increase the chances of patients retaining information, doctors have long used hospital whiteboards. These whiteboards allow for information to be displayed and constantly referred back to from the moment a patient is admitted to the moment they are discharged. Ready to learn more about whiteboard communication, get in touch with our team here at VividBoard to find out how we can help you design a whiteboard solution that is unique to the needs of your patients.