Why Healthcare Organizations Need Experience Management Now

How to engage with patients and improve payments in your revenue cycle.

Leading healthcare and patient financial services (PFS) teams have long understood the need to put patients at the center of their organizations – delivering a customer experience that conveys true value and helping staff meet patients’ rising expectations.

Now in the wake of a global pandemic and massive digital transformation, even the most established customer experience programs are having to rethink how they can meet rapidly changing expectations and support cross-channel patient experiences.

More than ever before, healthcare organizations and PFS departments need a smart experience management (XM) approach to monitor patient interactions and proactively spot opportunities for improvement.

What is experience management?

In a day and age when having a voice and being heard are as important to customers as products and services, the mark of a successful business is in the experience they provide. And in order to deliver on the experiences that customers expect, organizations can’t just react to challenges. They must find ways of predicting and resolving problems before they happen.

Experience management delivers an immediate picture of how people perceive your organization and harnesses critical information on both patient and employee satisfaction. The goal of XM technology? To listen and respond in highly strategic and personal ways.

Why is experience management important in healthcare?

According to Qualtrics, 80 percent of CEOs believe they deliver a superior experience, while only eight percent of their customers agree. That’s a big gap, and it’s one that XM can help close. Using an effective XM platform, your healthcare organization or PFS department can:

• Measure both patient and employee experiences by collecting critical feedback
• Apply detailed analytics to show patterns, predict problems, and identify actions
• Put insights into the hands of the right people to act on issues and optimize experiences

This smart approach to improving the patient experience is based on a simple and proven formula for success: Accurate data + informed action = happier patients and more revenue.

Why does it work? Because when you have the technology in place to listen to patients and staff, observe critical interactions, and uncover patterns, you have the complete patient experience view you need to drive effective action.

Experiential & operational data. Connecting the X’s & O’s.

So now you know why XM is essential for successful patient experiences. But not all XM approaches are created equal.

“Just like many consumer-based companies, healthcare organizations often only look at experience (X) data or operational (O) data in a silo,” says Susan Haufe, Chief Industry Advisor for healthcare at Qualtrics and certified customer experience professional.

“You need to marry the two to achieve the sweet spot. Information without context doesn’t give you the full picture of what’s happening with the customer,” Haufe says. “When you understand the context around each engagement, you can make good decisions.”

The best XM software platform will enable your organization to take operational metrics (O-data) and combine those with the thoughts and emotions of patients (X-data) – all in a single location. That means every decision can be based not only on what has happened, but also on why. So you can focus on both cost-savings and experience outcomes that will fuel long-term success.

How to become an XM master

Effective XM is about more than mere data collection. It involves taking a wholistic approach to the patient experience, so your department or organization can identify issues immediately and act to resolve them quickly.

Learn the proven approach to XM from the industry leader, Qualtrics. Watch our free, on-demand webinar to see ways you can start leveraging X-data and O-data for more satisfied patients – and more revenue.