Improving Employee Satisfaction, Engagement, & Retention

Hospitals are continuously looking for ways to increase patient satisfaction and loyalty to their facilities. However recent research suggests that attending to employee satisfaction first will ultimately lead to greater patient satisfaction and retention as well, thanks to the theory that loyal employees will create loyal customers.

Consider the following healthcare solutions to help you increase employee satisfaction and, consequently, patient satisfaction with your staff, your facility, and the overall patient experience.

1. Automate Workflow to Save Staff Time and Improve Efficiency

Your administrative staff members have a lot of responsibility. They are accountable for gathering all the necessary information and documentation that affects whether your hospital is paid or reimbursed for services delivered. How many times has a staff member forgotten to obtain a patient signature on just one form eventually leading to a back-end denial or rework for staff later on? If your staff currently relies on memory to determine every document that is needed for every situation for every type of patient, to meet every government regulation and payer-specific requirement, there is an easier way.

An electronic healthcare forms solution can eliminate the potential for human error by automating the forms selection process, ensuring the right documentation is completed every time and anywhere a patient presents. Furthermore, patient demographic data can be pre-populated on electronic healthcare forms with form automation, saving your staff time from having to handwrite this information on every form. This solution can automatically produce bar code identifiers on forms as well, eliminating the need for blue cards or a manual labeling process.

Electronic healthcare forms and form automation can relieve many burdens from your staff, allowing them to devote more attention to delivering friendly customer service and a stress-free patient experience.

2. Limit the Frustrations of Rework with Deficiency Management Tools

Implement healthcare technology solutions that will improve employee satisfaction.

There is nothing more irritating than finishing a job, only to have to redo it due to errors or missing information. Healthcare solutions that enforce data and documentation standards during registration can improve patient encounter accuracy by assisting registrars in capturing correct and complete information from the beginning, for every patient registration.

Preventing errors during registration can save employees from the hassle of rework that must be completed to fix earlier mistakes.  You can further improve employee efficiency with a deficiency management tool that continuously monitors each patient encounter, during registration and beyond, and flags errors and routes them to staff for resolution before they can snowball into lengthy rework down the road.

When it comes to employee satisfaction, it’s important to provide your staff with the proper tools to help them do the best job possible and take pride in their work.

3. Engage Employees with Incentives and Recognize Achievements

But don’t stop at improving employee satisfaction; be sure to address employee engagement as well. Engaged employees are not only happy with their jobs but also aware of their own impact on the organization’s reputation and are motivated to positively contribute to it.

Engaged employees feel appreciated by their managers. Recognizing employees for their achievements can go a long way in showing them they are a valued part of your team. One way to measure registrars’ accomplishments is by monitoring their level of patient encounter accuracy relative to their peers. Consider healthcare solutions that provide managers with performance report cards for all registrars and start an incentive program that rewards those with the top scores.  Often the motivation behind incentives has more to do with being acknowledged for hard work and with the healthy sense of competition they create, than with the actual reward received. 

When employees are engaged, their positive attitudes and strong work ethic can have a favorable influence on patient satisfaction.  But if employees are not engaged, they may begin to explore other options for employment.  And remember, patients also have options when it comes to where they obtain care.  Implementing healthcare solutions like the ones mentioned above can help you increase both employee satisfaction and patient satisfaction, improving your retention rates for both groups.