Healthcare Surveys

Healthcare is an increasingly competitive business. Medical technology continues to progress so that a greater degree of treatment can be provided to patients. Because of this, patients expect a high level of healthcare service delivery and, if they don't get it, your organization is likely to lose out.

Delivering the required level of service depends on knowing what your patients expect and how those expectations are met. It also means you have to employ adequate numbers of skilled staff, who are often not readily available.

To succeed in this competitive market, you have to listen to what your patients say and act on this feedback. You also have to understand the needs of current and future staff so you can recruit and retain qualified workers. Online survey software such as Key Survey can provide the information that healthcare organizations need so they can constantly improve their service.

Making it easier for patients to respond

Paperwork is an essential part of healthcare with the need to keep comprehensive and accurate records. However, an excess of paperwork is unwelcome for both staff and patients. Key Survey plays an important role in reducing unnecessary paperwork and improving standards by enabling online surveys that:

• let patients and their families rate the standard of service that has been provided and comment on their experience
• allow details to be input at a convenient time and place, which means responses are more likely to be given in a complete and informative manner
• avoid the need to re-key results from paper-based surveys
• make patients feel their opinion is valued and that they contribute to the process of improving healthcare standards
• deliver reports that analyze patient feedback and provide specific results that are relevant to those who receive them.

Finding out the views of your staff

Whilst patient feedback is vital to improve healthcare standards, your staff can also provide valuable information. Using Key Survey to gather this information, you can:

• allow anonymity so that staff can be open and critical
• share the information with any parts of the organization that will benefit
• improve communication and productivity by making staff feedback available to management team members
• promote better staff morale by involving team members so they feel their input is valued.

Ensuring you recruit and retain qualified staff

With skilled staff often being in short supply, it's important that you recruit the ones you need and then retain them. Failure to do either may indicate a problem with your employee relations and consulting with your existing staff may highlight any failings. You can then take corrective action to ensure you have the required staff to achieve your aims.

Use Key Survey to create and manage surveys so that you can:

• establish if existing workers will recommend others to join the organization and, if not, the reason for this
• find out what career opportunities any potential recruits are looking for and how you can match their aspirations.

Once you analyze your responses, you can act on the feedback. This can include changing the working environment, offering incentives to staff if they help to recruit new employees and launching targeted recruitment campaigns. Having done your research, you will at least be more certain of achieving positive results.

Maintaining standards and compliance

Some of the biggest challenges for healthcare professionals are maintaining high standards of care and complying with regulations. New technologies and medications are being introduced constantly while legislation is changing all the time.

Using survey software, you can improve compliance levels and standards by:

• testing the knowledge of employees to ensure they understand compliance needs
• identifying where training is needed in the use of equipment and the care of patients
• establishing any additional equipment and resources that employees require to carry out their duties.

Once you know what needs to be done, you can take steps to ensure your employees operate at peak efficiency and fulfil their responsibilities.