Bottlenecks caused by patient flow not only reduce efficiency and revenue, but also affect patient satisfaction levels. Improving flow starts with evaluating current systems and procedures to determine whether they are effective or are just hampering your efforts to provide quality healthcare.
It’s near the end of an exhausting shift. You’ve finally assigned each patient to a member of your staff, and you’re just sitting down to begin your charting. As you open a file, you begin to daydream about the fuzzy slippers and hot cup of tea you’ll soon enjoy at home. It’s been a long day but, unfortunately, it’s about to get even longer.
When it comes to healthcare’s pay-for-performance model, hospitals aren’t the only ones feeling the effects. Today, under the Affordable Care Act, physicians are expected to participate in the Physician Quality Reporting System (PQRS) — or begin facing penalties as early as next year. Private insurers also are adopting value-based payment.
Difficult patients have one thing in common: they are unhappy with some aspect of the service they’ve received at your facility. Whether a complaint is justified or it feels like the patient is being completely unreasonable, your responsibility is to address the complaint diplomatically and ensure it will not negatively affect the patient’s satisfaction.
Technology is always changing, and staying on trend can take more time and effort than you have available. When it’s time to invest in healthcare technology for your facility, how do you know which products will improve the patient experience and save money, and which are unnecessary and overpriced?
From a new EHR to an upgraded network, data storage to phone systems, you need investments that will yield the best returns — whether monetary or in the form of increased efficiency. Keeping the following things in mind will help you spend your money wisely.
