Why Should Your Healthcare Organization Collect PROs?
Collecting Patient-Reported Outcomes isn’t just a ‘nice-to-have’; it’s a MUST have.
Healthcare providers commonly assess a patient’s health status by considering various factors like laboratory results, vital signs, and medication usage. Although these aspects provide valuable insights, they fail to present the complete picture. Understanding how patients perceive their own health and well-being is crucial in comprehending their unique requirements and preferences.
With the help of patient-reported outcomes (PROs), you can gain a more comprehensive understanding of the patient experience by collecting data on factors such as general health, ability to complete activities, mood, fatigue, and pain. Rather than relying on a third-party view from a doctor or nurse, PROs provide insights around treatment effectiveness from those experiencing it firsthand. In other words, collecting PROs for healthcare organizations gives you a deeper understanding of your patients’ needs, which in turn, results in more personalized care and greater efficiency within your practice.
In the coming years, PROs are expected to play an even more important role in healthcare. With a growing emphasis on patient-centered care and value-based payment approaches, PROs can be used to assess performance and determine the comparative effectiveness of different treatments. They can also be used to help patients recover from illnesses more quickly, manage chronic conditions more effectively, and improve their overall health and quality of life.
Ultimately, the success of your healthcare organization is measured by its ability to help patients achieve optimal health and well-being. Collecting PROs for healthcare organizations is an essential tool for reaching this goal because it provides you with valuable insights into patients experiences and needs, and enables you to tailor care to meet their requirements.
Benefits of Collecting PROs for Healthcare Organizations
PROs are a type of data that is collected directly from patients about their experiences with healthcare services. This can include information on a wide range of factors, such as pain levels, quality of life, mental health, and overall satisfaction with care.
PROs are typically gathered through surveys or questionnaires that patients complete before their care experience begins and continue afterward to document progression. By leveraging survey results effectively, you can improve the patient experience and achieve better health outcomes for all, but let’s take a more detailed look into the benefits of collecting PROs for healthcare organizations:
Improve Quality of Care
One of the most significant benefits of collecting PROs for healthcare organizations is that this can help you improve the quality of care you offer. Based on feedback taken directly from patients, you gain valuable insights into how patients are experiencing the care provided at your healthcare organization and what areas need improvement. Once you identify gaps, you can implement targeted interventions to address specific patient needs.
For example, if a patient reports experiencing high levels of pain after a procedure, you can adjust their pain management plan accordingly. Similarly, if a patient reports feeling confused or unsure about their treatment plan, you can take steps to improve communication and ensure that patients fully understand their care options. Therefore, making changes that lead to better patient experiences allows you to improve patient outcomes, reduce the risk of adverse events, and enhance the overall quality of care.
Enhance Patient Engagement
Providing patients with a platform to voice their concerns and provide feedback on their care offers the unique opportunity to enhance engagement and partnership with them while improving efficiency and quality. Engaged patients are more likely to have better health outcomes and collecting PROs shows them that their opinions and experiences are valued. In addition to this, actively soliciting patient feedback proves that you’re committed to providing high-quality, patient-centered care.
Attract and Retain Patients
Collecting PROs for healthcare organizations and using the data to improve patient outcomes helps you build a strong reputation for high-quality, patient-centered care. As a result, you can attract new and retain existing patients, leading to the long-term success of your healthcare organization.
For example, assessing patient satisfaction with discharge procedures provides you with the data necessary to pinpoint areas where patients are consistently reporting dissatisfaction. With this information at your disposal, you can implement changes such as providing more detailed instructions for at-home care or improving follow-up communication with patients after discharge. This way, you would be improving patient outcomes, leading to increased patient retention and a stronger overall reputation.
Use Satisfaction Metrics to Boost Online Reputation
By collecting PROs on patient satisfaction, you can identify areas where patients are particularly satisfied with their care and use that information to highlight your strengths. In other words, you can incorporate patient feedback and satisfaction metrics into your online presence.
One way to do this is to use that feedback to shape calls-to-action and address your visitors’ pain points with proven benefits of your care on your website, social media accounts, or other online platforms. When you showcase your unique strengths and patient-centered approach to care, you can stand out in a crowded marketplace and attract new patients who are seeking a personalized and positive healthcare experience.
Acting on patient feedback is bound to improve your online reputation and encourage satisfied patients to leave positive reviews on online platforms. At the same time, make sure to respond to patient reviews and address negative feedback in a constructive manner to demonstrate commitment to improving patient care and building trust with your patients. By leveraging PRO results as part of your online reputation management strategy, you can improve your online visibility as well as patient volume and revenue.
Simplify Transition to Value-Based and Patient-Centered Care
Collecting PROs for healthcare organizations is a vital component of ensuring value-based and patient-centered care. This provides you with a more accurate view of your success or shortcomings and shows you whether the care patients are receiving is making a true difference in helping them proactively manage their health, recover from illnesses, or live their best possible life with different types of conditions.
In addition to this, collecting PROs for healthcare organizations can be a key driver of your profitability. By improving patient satisfaction, online reputation, and patient retention, you increase your long-term value to patients and generate more revenue over time. That’s why it’s important to view PROs as more than just a checkbox item, but rather as a powerful tool for improving the quality of care and driving business success.
However, many healthcare organizations still rely on paper-based surveys or phone calls to collect data, making it difficult and time-consuming to integrate the information into patients’ records, without disrupting the workflow. The result is that this information is generally not used in a meaningful way.
To streamline the process and make the information more timely and valuable, you can rely on SocialClimb to allow you to automate the process of collecting and analyzing PRO data. This helps you save time and resources while still gaining valuable insights into patient experiences.
With the help of SocialClimb’s platform, you can send patient satisfaction and PRO surveys automatically, either via email or text message. This makes it easy for patients to provide feedback on their care experiences while ensuring that you receive a steady stream of data to analyze and act on.
In addition, SocialClimb also provides robust data analytics tools that help you understand patient feedback and identify areas for improvement. You can use these tools to track changes in patient satisfaction over time, identify patterns in patient feedback, tailor services to meet patient needs, and improve both their health outcomes and your profitability over time.
