Even as more healthcare facilities become available, many patients still face access barriers. Cost remains the primary barrier, with three out of 10 Americans reporting skipping medical care due to its costs according to a recent poll.
Other barriers include implicit bias and mistrust in medicine; for increased patient access, the medical industry must address these concerns.
Patient-centered care
Patient-centric care may seem like just another buzzword in healthcare, but it’s actually an effective strategy that can improve medical outcomes and patient satisfaction. To do this, healthcare providers must actively listen to patients and involve them in their care – which in turn can make the entire healthcare experience more efficient and effective.
Implementing patient-centric care requires a cultural shift. Shifting our approach to treating patients and their families must involve shared decision making and encouraging patients to ask questions; this strategy will also reduce costs while improving health outcomes, and foster cooperation between clinicians who share similar goals with their patients.
Patient-centric care can be achieved through an integrated approach that takes into account both patients’ physical comfort and emotional wellbeing, as well as encouraging family participation by providing a homelike setting in which all members can interact freely in safety.
Not all patients can fully engage in patient-centric care, such as elderly or disabled patients who may struggle to communicate effectively or comprehend their health conditions. But physicians can still deliver quality healthcare by providing information and education about their conditions.
Nurses play an essential part in providing patient-centric care. Using innovative technologies, nurses can assist patients with their care while using similar technologies to gather feedback from them and measure satisfaction levels. Furthermore, their leadership abilities allow them to influence hospital or clinic policy.
As was true in the past, patients often considered healthcare a passive experience. Now with rising healthcare consumerism, patients are demanding more from their providers. To meet this growing demand for value-based care and improve clinical outcomes, medical centres are striving to offer more patient-centric care that drives value-based care and enhances clinical outcomes.
Improving patient-centric care can be a complex endeavor that involves making profound cultural shifts within hospitals and practice settings. Yet numerous studies demonstrate that strategies used to increase patient-centricity correlate to high performing organizations with safe workplace environments, desirable employees, and financial strength. Such strategies include emphasizing leadership values; human resource policies that recruit staff with service and empathy qualities, as well as continuously measuring patient experience via well-designed surveys.
Convenient care
Northpark MC leading medical centre in prospect ensures patients can access medical assistance quickly. This is especially crucial in areas where it can be challenging to book an immediate appointment with primary care providers. Medical centers also offer other services that enhance patient experiences – this may include health promotion and disease prevention strategies or accessing specialty care.
Medical centres can help relieve pressure on primary care providers by offering patients more efficient services. They can do this by shortening wait times and creating co-ordinated mechanisms to deliver comprehensive care, working closely with primary care providers to ensure patients receive optimal treatment and outcomes.
Medical centres can reduce costs while increasing convenience by providing better care, forgoing unnecessary tests and treatments, and streamlining procedures through collaborative workflows and technology. Virginia Mason has achieved substantial savings through prioritizing higher-acuity patients; each $1,646 visit they avoid can save $6,327 in costs!
Although convenient care offers many advantages, it is crucial that healthcare providers recognize its limitations and know when and when not to utilize its services. When facing minor illness or injuries healthcare professionals should advise patients to visit their primary care provider instead of seeking treatment at convenient care clinics or urgent care sites as this will reduce unnecessary visits.
Convenient care clinics are small walk-in clinics typically found within drug stores that specialize in treating common illnesses and injuries such as sore throats, ear infections, colds, coughs, minor burns and minor scrapes. Many convenient care clinics also provide vaccinations and lab tests; their hours may even extend past 7 days per week to provide an affordable alternative to emergency departments.
Urgent care clinics are similar to convenient care clinics but feature more advanced capabilities such as x-ray and CT scan facilities. Furthermore, these clinics often have longer hours than traditional healthcare centers and may be the better option for treating non-life threatening issues, such as minor illness or injury.
Ease of access
Access to health care is a complex issue with multiple factors that interact and influence it. A patient’s ability to use services may depend on their socio-economic status, geographic availability and accessibility of such services; and even what type of health services they can utilize directly influences this decision. Due to these multiple influences on “access”, different authors have defined this term differently.
Some scholars view health service access as the availability and affordability of health services; others suggest measuring it against one’s ability to utilize these services; finally, some believe the concepts of accessibility and utilization should be treated separately due to being affected by different factors.
One way to facilitate ease of access is through developing policies that enable patients to find the appropriate provider for their needs. For instance, some patients require doctors with experience treating specific conditions – increasing this number could improve quality care while decreasing costs and helping individuals overcome non-pandemic barriers like transportation or scheduling conflicts with appointments.
Community health centers in the US provide essential access to affordable and accessible primary healthcare for low-income and uninsured patients, supported by federal grants. Community health centers provide primary care in an array of settings – on site as well as virtual care such as telemedicine – with increasing numbers providing more accessible care at an affordable cost for all.
As more people turn to telemedicine for health care needs, it’s critical that there be an efficient strategy in place for providing convenient care. One solution could be creating standardized care models which allow patients to navigate the process of receiving multiple providers’ treatments while at the same time decreasing the chance of sub-optimal care being delivered to them. This standardization process could also be integrated into new technologies designed specifically to provide convenient health care.
Patient satisfaction
Patient satisfaction has become a top priority of healthcare organizations from hospitals to physician practices to home health agencies, due to the fact that reimbursement increasingly depends on patient satisfaction scores as part of value-based purchasing and private pay initiatives. Furthermore, many senior executives’ compensation packages depend on patient satisfaction outcomes.
Patient satisfaction is not an easily quantifiable concept; rather it involves several dimensions including medical care, hospital amenities and patient interactions. To measure patient satisfaction accurately healthcare providers must understand all these factors and their interactions as well as any discrepancies between expectations and experiences that need addressing.
Studies have established a connection between patient satisfaction and healthcare outcomes, such as clinical effectiveness and quality of life. A 2010 paper in Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes demonstrated this, reporting it’s association with lower risk-adjusted mortality rates among acute myocardial infarction patients as well as lower 30-day readmission rates due to heart failure, heart attack, or pneumonia patients.
Note, however, that patient satisfaction should not become the main focus of healthcare provision; its primary goal should remain improving health in a cost-effective and safe manner. Still, patient satisfaction remains an essential aspect of good healthcare delivery and must be measured carefully and monitored regularly.
One strategy to increase patient satisfaction is providing more detailed information about healthcare facilities and their services, such as through creating a website with an FAQs section, or providing printed collateral that remains up-to-date at all times. Another helpful technique would be providing the names and contact info of patient representatives; this will give patients more confidence and comfort during visits to facilities.
One way to increase patient satisfaction is through providing more individualized care, by meeting each patient’s individual needs and offering more flexible scheduling options.