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Smart technologies have transformed the world of healthcare into a patient-centric one. Big data, Cloud Computing, IoT and AI are some of the smart technologies that are revolutionizing the healthcare arena to improve patient satisfaction and enhance the service quality. The smart healthcare market is growing at an incredible pace and is expected to touch $251 billion by 2025. Here is an overview of the utilization of smart technologies in the healthcare field.

The Use of Smart Technologies in the Healthcare Field
Smart healthcare is the term used to refer to the use of electronic or digital technology in the diagnosis and treatment of patients and improving the quality of their health. This also includes the sharing of data and information between patients and healthcare providers. Here are some of the smart technologies are being used to offer value-based clinical service to improve patient satisfaction at hospitals.

1. Virtual Doctor Consultations
The ability to interact and consult with a doctor online opens up immense possibilities through Telemedicine. Telemedicine helps doctors to have access to patients who are in remote areas and allows medical treatment not to have any restrictions. This technology has helped patients to have access for basic care & treatment which is the needs of the hour, as prevention is better than cure. This technology has also helped doctors talk to patients in other countries who do not have access to super specialty care which has helped to gain the confidence on the doctors and also has helped in customer retention strategies for the hospitals.

2. IoT
Internet-of-things is an example of the amazing use of smart technology in healthcare. IoT enables the real-time monitoring of a patient's vital signs on a round-the-clock basis by the use of wearable devices. Today, a patient is able to keep track of his heart rate, glucose levels, blood pressure, etc by the use of IoT devices.

IoT has made healthcare take a big step to improve patient satisfaction and awareness by connecting patient-data recorded on wearables directly with healthcare providers to offer immediate and effective treatment.

3. Patient Feedback System
With healthcare becoming more patient-centric, hospitals are focusing on ways to improve patient satisfaction at all levels. To enable this, a Patient Feedback System is instituted using Smart technology at hospitals. Patient feedback apps are hosted by hospitals and data is collected on the patient's experience at the hospital. Using data analytics, this data is analyzed to take corrective and remedial measures at hospital to improve patient satisfaction.

4. Social Media
Though healthcare is service-oriented, it is also a commercial industry that relies on patients as its customers. The only way to sustain in the healthcare market is to maintain the customer base. One of the best customer retention strategies that hospitals can employ is by sharing content on social media.

Most patients do research on social media before they chose a healthcare provider. The only way for a hospital to retain customers is by having a strong social media presence and a well- optimized website. With the help of a seasoned healthcare consulting firm, every hospital must share unique and useful content on social media to maintain visibility and generate leads.

5. Smart EMR
EMR or Electronic Medical Records help to record, store and organize patient data at hospitals in a digitized manner. They help to retrieve and share patient data quickly and safely across mobile and internet devices. This helps in improving the speed and efficiency of service delivery in healthcare.

Today, with the help of Smart Technology, Smart EMRs help in recording past history and present diagnostic data of the patient. They also record the electronic prescriptions and make a note of the drug interactions and medication history of the patients. Online appointment scheduling and printing of patient's prescriptions and test reports are also possible with EMR. All this enhances the speed and accuracy of diagnostics tremendously.

The utilization of smart technology in healthcare is a harbinger of hope to reduce mortality and duration of stays at hospitals. Every hospital must make use of smart technology to optimize its quality of clinical service and improve patient satisfaction. The role of a professional healthcare consulting firm would make it easy for the hospitals to identify and adapt to such technologies and making it easy for handling their day to day operations, which in return helps to increase the efficiency of the hospital.

Growth analysis of healthcare market is getting more complex by the day due to increasing numbers of the aging population, the prevalence of chronic ailments and exponential growth of digital technologies. These factors are creating more complex demands by the patients and caretakers and also increasing healthcare expenditures. As hospitals are major contributors to clinical revenues, analysis of hospital facility growth forms a vital constituent for analyzing and measuring the growth of the healthcare sector.

Analysis of hospital efficiency growth has also assumed significance as hospitals have been on continuous pressure to improve performance by controlling costs without compromising on the quality and access to the care services they render. It is well-known that hospital efficiency is a complicated and multifaceted parameter as it involves both clinical and managerial aspects. The efficiency of hospitals can be analyzed by the benchmarking process. Here benchmarking implies deployment of tools based on active and voluntary collaboration between various healthcare partners to create a spirit of competition and evolve best practices.

By benchmarking, hospitals are able to understand their competitive strengths and identify the functional areas for improvement by developing strategies for

Sustaining growth
Positioning their offerings
Expanding the care services portfolio
Formulating and estimating their marketing budgets for branding and making further expansions

There are hundreds of financial and quality metrics to be tracked and improved upon to determine the efficiency and productivity growth analysis in hospitals. Let us understand a few vital metrics.

Metrics for Analyzing Hospital Productivity

Length of Stay - This metric measures the duration between the patient’s admission to and discharge from the hospital. This information is critical as it helps to analyze care efficiency. Patients requiring a longer length of stay impact the hospital’s finances as more treatment expenses are involved.
Readmission Rates - This metric is used for tracking the percentage of patients who are admitted back to the same or different hospital to address the same (existing) health condition or complications arising from it within a month of discharge. Lower readmission rates depict better quality of dispensed care.
Patient Satisfaction - Several parameters ranging from care quality to cleanliness and hygiene standards of care facilities are assessed to measure patient satisfaction. This metric provides actionable data for hospitals to improve patient experiences.
Mortality Rates - Patient mortality rates measure the number of deaths that occur during hospitalization. This metric is a strong indicator that portrays ways to stabilize patients after surgeries or other clinical procedures to avoid casualties.
Bed Utilization Rate - Also termed as bed occupancy rate, this metric is used to measure the total number of hospital beds that are being used at any given point of time. Low occupancies indicate poor efficiency and productivity as hospitals are spending unnecessary money on maintenance of staff, facilities and infrastructure.
Incidents - Hospital incidents refer to unforeseen situations and conditions including cases of sepsis, post-respiratory failures, sudden hemorrhages and fatal infections. Tracking hospital incidents quantifies the ability of hospital staff to deliver comprehensive and standardized care services to patients without triggering adverse reactions.
Average Cost per Discharge - By tracking the average care costs incurred by every discharged patient, hospitals can analyze what departments or services are making more profits and which other therapy areas are overspending. That helps in adjusting care provisions accordingly so that hospital performance is not negatively impacted by high care costs and low margins.
Operating Margin - The difference between the hospital revenue and its operating expenses including staff salaries, cost of supplies, medical equipment and their maintenance and rent indicates the operating margin. It is crucial that the hospital is able to incur these expenses without making debts.
Growth patterns in Outpatient Hospital Services - Technological advancements like minimally invasive surgical procedures are tilting the equilibrium in favour of outpatient services that enable patients to return home sooner. Such growth patterns increase productivity and revenues by helping hospitals render services in lower-cost care settings with enhanced facilities.

Say the word "nurse" and you immediately think of not just the white uniform and cap, but of that kind look, caring hands and that soothing touch, all of which combine to coin the term "empathy". Yes, nurses have been synonymous with empathy and caring since time immemorial. They are the main link in the chain called hospital--patient relationship as they are the ones who are in close contact with patients. So the reputation of a hospital also depends on the quality of its nursing staff and the empathy they extend to patients.

Every prestigious hospital understands the importance of patient satisfaction and knows full well that this depends mainly on the nurse-patient interaction. This is why seasoned healthcare consulting firms are enlisted by hospitals to train their nursing staff on offering empathetic service to patients.

The role of empathy in the services offered by nurses and caregivers is critical for healthcare quality management and is highlighted below for better understanding.

Why is empathy an integral component of the role of nurses?

Of all the qualities of a good nurse, empathy is most important because

Nurses are the caregivers who attend to the patient closely
They should intuitively understand the patient's state of health, mind and of their needs.
Nurses are often at the forefront and must bear the bad news about the patient's condition or even mounting hospital expenses.
The main job of a nurse is to help the physician to heal the patient. To achieve this, nurses must first extend care and concern to the patient above everything else.
Emotional support can help the patient faster than medicines and this should be realized by nurses.
Above all, nurses must understand the importance of patient satisfaction and empathy is vital in providing this.

Empathy in the importance of patient satisfaction

A McKinsey Report reveals that empathy drives patient satisfaction more than anything else. Among the many factors like quality of healthcare, room environment, hospital facilities, etc., the respondents voted "Nurse Empathy" above all other criteria.

This is proof to show that empathy rank the highest in the importance of patient satisfaction and nurses must be trained to offer that.

Why do nurses need training to offer empathy to patients?

Most often, people assume that empathy comes naturally for nurses. But this is not true, Young nurses are too inexperienced to understand the pain and anguish of the patients. The old nurses have attended to so many patients that they are numbed by that experience. This does not mean empathy can be done away with.

Empathy is the foremost responsibility of a nurse and he/she must be trained to offer it fully. Empathy is nothing but "putting oneself in the patient's shoes" and envisaging the situation. This training can be offered by a qualified healthcare consulting firm to improve the hospital-patient relationship.

What empathy means for the hospital, patient and nurse?

For the Patient
"For a patient, a little empathy can make a lot of difference and be a life-changing experience."
Yes, research by the Massachusetts General Hospital shows that an empathetic rapport with patients increased their cooperation and improved their outcome in chronic conditions like diabetes, asthma, hypertension etc.

Patients require a little empathy form nurse and caregiver and this alleviates their anxiety about their medical condition and even their trauma to a great extent. The thought that someone understands and empathizes can improve patient adherence by 12% as shown by the MedCare Review.

For the Hospital
"Empathy is a skill reflected in their hospital ratings, reviews and reputation. "
How the patient perceives his experience at the hospital says a lot about the hospital's calibre and empathy is critical in establishing it.

For the Nurse
"For a nurse, empathy ensures job satisfaction and provide a feeling of contribution to the society. It adds value to their work and enhances their self-esteem."
Nurses may be trained to be more empathetic and sensitive to patient's needs, calls, machine alarms and health warnings. This can prevent accidents, falls, mishaps and medication error and help save the lives of patients.

Empathy is epitome in healthcare quality management. Enlist the services of a professional healthcare consulting firm to entrench it in the nursing staff at your hospital.

Patient acquisition and retention are the motives behind every marketing activity of a healthcare practice. A healthy practice of a doctor sees at least 30-50 new patients per week. The patient acquisition is a complex task that involves superior care and quality medical care followed by precise marketing strategies that are in line with the patient's interests.

The practice should offer competitive healthcare solutions that bear the reasonable pricing. Patient retention demands consistent medical quality and the patient acquisition needs the efforts that project the success of a practice in a comprehensive manner to the public. And, the marketing department plays a pivotal role in this region.

Understanding the patient needs from a better perception, exerting to meet their expectations, building a strong relationship with the patients that expands beyond the hospital walls, make your patients feel that their concerns are being heard are a few tactics that hospitals follow.

Rather than calling them tactics, most of the points in the patient acquisition list come under the ethical practice of a healthcare practice. Continue reading the blog to know to have a deeper look into various dimensions of patient acquisition in a healthcare atmosphere.

1. Priority to the Patient Needs

Patients and their caretakers visit a hospital with an ailment that is already causing them distress. The hospital should understand this and act in an addressing manner.
Always analyze your performance not only as a healthcare provider but as a capable provider who could understand the patient needs.
Every staff member in the practice should share the responsibility of the patient, not just the doctors and the nurses.
Being empathetic, using the assuring words without hiding the facts and striving to fulfill patient's needs always leave a good impression on the hospital.

2. Work On Your Network

Building your own network and database is key to get new referrals, every day. Work on your network and increase the number of practices that refer your hospital.
By bettering your connections with the PHPs will increase your patient in-flow. Build the relationships that are mutually beneficial.
By provide enhanced care to the patients referred by the PHPs, you can secure a long-lasting relationship.

3. Strong Presence in the Market

Make sure you have a strong presence in the market on both offline and online platforms.
Develop a user-friendly website and strong digital marketing team that takes care of your social media presence.
Appearing on the top result listings increases the chances of new customers than any other marketing activity by taking help from healthcare consultancies.
Being specific about the messages in your promotions and stick to your strengths will yield the results.
Make sure you maintain an engaging relationship with your followers on the social media platforms and conducts online live sessions with your doctors frequently.

4. Stay In Touch with Your Patient Base

Always stay in touch with your patient base through reminder messages, appointment alerts and by making them a part of health-oriented promotional activities.
Develop the strategies that increase your patient base as well as open doors for deeper relationships between the healthcare providers and the receivers.
Be in touch with the target audience by providing valuable information on your social media platforms and newsletters.

5. Be Socially Responsible

Contribute largely to the society by organizing health camps and other corporate social responsibility activities.
Know your local community's health needs and be the first reliable source for the public.
Adhere to the medical ethics and ensure your practice reciprocates as per the interests of the large community.

The cycle of patient acquisition starts with the exceptional patient care that is backed by creating trust and empathetic environment. The patient flow starts increasing when your services standout from the rest of the practices.

Patients head to a hospital seeking relief from their ailments but unfortunately for some, their hospital experience turns out to be traumatic. Patients come back whining and complaining about their hospital woes and dread going to the same hospital again.
Professional Hospitals must lend a patient ear to these grievances and issues raised by patients. They should incorporate a patient feedback mechanism in their hospital management to learn these complaints. If these issues are ignored, the very reputation of the hospital will be at stake and so will its profitability.
This is why it is best for hospitals to engage the hospital management services of a professional and experienced healthcare consulting firm. This will definitely improve the patient experience and resolve all the patient's grievances against the hospital.

Common issues faced by a patient at a hospital

1. Lack of sensitivity to patient's needs

This is the most gigantic problem that looms at every hospital. Patients feel that the hospital's care providers namely the physicians, nurses and attendants, are not sensitive to the patient's needs.
When this complaint is voiced, the patient refers to the

Sleep deprivation he/she faces due to

- Doctors or nurses disturbing them at night to do tests or draw blood samples. This clearly shows a lack of concern for the patient's health and sleep requirement.
- Noisy nurse stations where there is a huge din disturbing their sleep.

Delay in attending to the patient when

- The person presses the buzzer for nurses.
- The patient is taken from his bed for a scan and kept waiting.

Disrespect meted out to them by the nurses barging in unannounced without knocking.

2. Lack of clear communication from hospital staff

Patients face this problem acutely at hospitals when

There is a changeover from one physician to another causing conflict of opinions or diagnosis.
The patient's condition is not communicated to their family when it changes.
The patient is not informed or reassured of his condition when a test or scan is taken.

3. Lack of professionalism on the part of the hospital staff

Patients feel disheartened and irritated by the lack of professionalism from hospital staff which is exhibited as

Rude or brusque behaviour by nurses expressed as stern talk, not answering etc.
Nurses on break not responding to queries
Nurses from other departments not willing to help
Nurses not listening to what the patient is saying
Nurses not executing their roles efficiently.

4. Lack of hygiene in hospitals

A hospital should relieve illness not bring it in. But patients feel they would become sicker at hospitals when

The rooms are messy
The bathrooms stink
The bed-covers are not changed daily
The rooms are not cleaned every day
The patient robes are smelly
The dustbins are not emptied

5. Lack of orientation at hospitals

Every hospital has many floors and levels. The patients have to move here and there from one level to the next to meet the doctors, take tests or scans, etc. Often, patients feel disoriented at hospitals because

There are no signboards or directional arrows pointing the way.
The persons at the reception desk are not forthcoming.
There is no one to guide the patient around the hospital.
The consultation rooms are frequently changed.
The whiteboards at the hospital are not updated.

6. Lack of professional efficiency due to a shortage of good doctors and nurses

Sometimes hospitals face a shortage of trained physicians and nurses and make do with those "under training". Patients find it demoralizing when they are not attended by expert physicians or experienced doctors.
Patient satisfaction should be the prime motto of any hospital. Assess this using a patient satisfaction survey and use the services of a professional health consulting firm for grievance redressal.

Healthcare ethics (also called medical ethics/bioethics) encompass a set of moral principles, beliefs and values that guide our choices and decision-making in healthcare. It is the core and heart of the patient-centric healthcare system. Ethics help us in judging and discriminating between our sense of right and wrong, reinforcing our beliefs about the rights we possess and endorsing the duties we owe to society. A careful contemplation of the ethical aspects enables us in choosing the right options for making justifiable healthcare decisions.

All healthcare professionals are bound by legal and ethical obligations to ensure the best interests of patients seeking care services. They must necessarily demonstrate ethical behavior and responsibility by doing the right thing for the patient to ensure the best possible healthcare outcomes. Most healthcare professions define ethical codes and practices.

Here are a few examples of healthcare ethics:

Taking crucial decisions about end-of-life care like continuing life support system to a brain-dead patient.
Doing fund allocation by prioritizing the treatment of chronic diseases and promotion of public health.
Crucially identifying gaps in the health status of the population strata and contemplating on the ethical obligations to ensure equitable healthcare access to all.
Enabling pathways for ensuring ethical conduct in medical research.
Investigating the ethical implications of cloning technology in genetics.

Underlying Principles of Healthcare Ethics

The four cardinal principles of ethics in healthcare include:

Autonomy which implies that the patient’s right to take their own healthcare decisions must be completely respected.
Beneficence which indicates that the patients must be supported and helped adequately in their best interests for improvement of health status.
Nonmaleficence which is essential to ensure that no harm is done to the patient.
Justice which promotes unbiased handling of all patient engagement alike in a fair manner without partiality.

Impact of Healthcare Ethics

Ethics has a significant impact on quality management in healthcare. This is because it is an integral part of discussions about treatment choices and care options that involve patients, caretakers, family and healthcare facilities like hospitals. Hence it calls for a critical analysis of the relationship between healthcare professionals and patients and the infrastructure needed to improve public healthcare systems. Sound ethics are also the building blocks of good hospital quality management because it ensures the delivery of standardized and unbiased value-based care procedures in a timely fashion. An ethical approach also ensures total hospital patient satisfaction since it creates a strong foundation of mutual trust and empowerment between the giver(hospital) and the taker(patient).

Healthcare consultants can reinforce ethical practices by their sincere involvement in standardizing medical practices and deliberating clinical resource allocations. They also do a critical and ethical analysis of healthcare determinants. This is done by introspecting the complicated moral choices which evolve from ongoing healthcare restructuring and advancing technology.

Benefits of Healthcare Ethics

Standardizes healthcare decision making – By deploying a consistent model of ethical standards creates a roadmap for uniform decision making by all employees in the healthcare organization. It thus simplifies the process by setting predefined norms with a set of principles resulting in fewer ethical dilemmas because standardized protocols and action guidelines are in place.
Improves patient centricity – Ethical standards promote primary healthcare concerns with a strong focus on patient needs by using predefined guidelines. This minimizes medical errors by the practitioners who are committed to following the rules.
Enhances public support for the medical profession - Promotion of ethical practices improves public image and builds public trust. This, in turn, encourages community donations and funding for new healthcare projects and initiatives.
Promotes research and development - Ethical principles determine the types of medical research to be conducted. This is crucial for the continuance of the healthcare profession in addressing curing existing diseases and developing preventive healthcare approaches.

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