When it comes to customer experience, healthcare organizations face the most challenges. Unlike in other industries, the products and services they provide impact the patient’s health and lives, meaning that one mistake can effectively snowball and contribute to greater losses along the way.
Facility cleanliness, staff training, and availability of offered products and services are among the key aspects of patient experience that healthcare organizations can’t overlook if they want to exceed expectations and become the number one choice for their patients.
However, if these challenges remain unaddressed, patients will not only refuse to visit the organization’s premises in the future but will also likely spread the word online, contributing to even more lost opportunities and reputation harm, which can take years to build back.
How Does Bad Patient Experience Impact Healthcare Organizations?
While negative experiences are harmful to businesses in all industries, in healthcare, their impact is tenfold. Because of the nature of the health business, patients expect their providers to put extra care into the cleanliness of their facility, proper staffing, and other aspects of the operations.
As patients develop opinions based on their first impressions, they might assume a healthcare organization is unprofessional because of what they saw before even receiving their treatment, and such an impression is extremely hard to change down the road.
Unfortunately, many healthcare organizations aren’t aware of this as they don’t have the right tools in place to measure satisfaction across key areas of their facility. Because of that, they’re losing business without even realizing where the bottleneck is located – and hence, can’t fix it.
Improving Patient Care with AI
By implementing the latest technology, healthcare providers can close the gaps in their patient experience and closely monitor it for any abnormalities to address them in real time, right as they appear.
However, it’s no longer sufficient to simply measure patient feedback. With the vast number of data points, a new solution is necessary that will not only process the data but also provide actionable insights the business can act upon within seconds without wasting time to analyze the data manually.
This is where artificial intelligence comes into the picture, crunching vast amounts of data in seconds and giving healthcare organizations a view of their operations with areas that might require improvement, as well as those that align with patient expectations. This allows to allocate resources effectively and focus on closing the gaps through well-informed decisions based on data sourced directly from those impacted – the patients.
Will AI Take over in 2024?
Not so long ago, only healthcare organizations with large budgets were able to reap the benefits now available to every organization thanks to AI. Because of this shift and the enormous benefits artificial intelligence brings at a relatively low cost, healthcare organizations of all sizes are expected to implement AI at some point throughout their operations as these solutions become even more affordable and powerful as we enter 2024.
Healthcare Organizations Are Already Utilizing AI
Currently, 38% of healthcare providers use some form of artificial intelligence for computer-based diagnostics, according to Gartner. With so many organizations already trusting the technology, its use is spreading to other areas of the patient journey, especially patient satisfaction, as many organizations recognize it as the key to success in the customer-centric landscape.
How Does AI Work to Improve Patient Satisfaction?
One of the advantages of utilizing AI for measuring patient satisfaction is the ability to aggregate data. For example, by measuring satisfaction at key points of the patient journey, such as the waiting area, bathrooms, and immediately after the visit, AI can create a comprehensive image of the overall service quality.
With intelligent algorithms, AI can then set benchmarks and pinpoint areas needing improvement to help healthcare providers allocate their resources efficiently and optimize their operations for maximum patient satisfaction.
3 AI Benefits for Healthcare Organizations in 2024
- Lower Operational Costs: By knowing which areas need improvement and which ones excel, healthcare organizations can better allocate their resources, reducing their operational costs.
- Positive Word of Mouth: When patients see their opinion is valued and implemented, they’re more likely to recommend a facility in-person and online.
- Competitive Edge: Knowing what patients need gives healthcare providers an opportunity to better tailor their service and make patients feel like it’s created specifically for them.
Conclusion
While AI solutions have been available to healthcare businesses for years, they’re finally becoming more accessible and powerful, which allows providers of all sizes to leverage these unique benefits.
From monitoring patient feedback to making actionable decisions based on the data collected, the human factor needed to improve operations is decreasing exponentially, paving the way for more automated and optimized healthcare services.
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