REASONS OF POOR ONLINE REVIEWS:
While there are many things that can irritate a hospital’s customer, there are only a few that go beyond their tolerance level and cause them to give the hospital a low rating. To find those reasons, I analysed more than 900 negative online reviews from 32 different hospitals. Based on my study, I’ve identified the top five causes of low internet ratings and what can be done to avoid them.
Dissatisfied with treatment outcome:
Patients come to the hospital for a specific reason, and if they do not receive the treatment they expect, they are extremely dissatisfied. These customers account for the majority of low ratings and negative reviews. Most of them blame the doctor or the hospital, and they may dispute the doctor’s or hospital’s competence and effectiveness.
Preventive measures:
Make sure the patient and his or her family understand the treatment’s predicted outcome. The status of the patient’s illness should be communicated to family members as soon as possible. It should be compassionately conveyed to them with an apology in some cases where a favourable outcome was expected but not achieved.
This seems to be easy, but clinical care is a collective effort of Doctor, Nurse and Paramedical. Unless the care team is not bounded by a policy or procedure; uniformity in dealing with patient and relatives shall not be obtained.
By implementing NABH (atleast Pre entry), Care plan documentation, assessment and reassessment of patients along with counselling and recording of informed consent about the current outcome makes the patient and relatives atleast in a conscious decision making state to understand and accept the poor clinical outcome.
Patient death
Deaths are unavoidable in hospitals, especially those that deal with critical patients. Existing reviews, on the other hand, reveal that relatives of patients who died in hospitals are harsh and frequently give the worst ratings for hospitals. Many of them go so far as to blame the hospital or doctor for their loved one’s death.
While doctors cannot avoid all deaths, it is critical to be attentive to the feelings of relatives whose loved one is dying.
Preventive measures:
Hospitals must make every effort to ensure that family are adequately cared for, both physically and emotionally. The families must be informed in advance of the likelihood of the patient’s terminal condition.
NABH has a standard, which needs to be fulfilled effectively and that is Procedure in dealing end of life care, Death Communication and Informed Consent of Poor Prognosis. If the relatives are kept informed on daily basis by proper counselling about the poor GC condition of the patient, it helps the relatives in preparing themselves for acceptance. Proper Counselling means, the Consultant has to make the relatives of the critical patient sitted in a private closed room, making them little comfortable and than explaining about the criticality of the patient along with the measures taken by the hospital. Use of appropriate, generous and respectful words should be adopted while counselling and communicating or breaking the bad news.
This will atleast reduce the number of negative reviews due to this reason.
Financial Exploitation
Financial exploitation is distinct from the notion of a costly hospital, where most patients are tolerant and do not give negative feedback. Customers often feel abused when doctors and personnel place a greater emphasis on pricing and payment than on patient care, and when they believe that investigations or treatments were solely performed to increase invoices. This is especially crucial in healthcare because many individuals do not view making money off of their suffering as a positive thing.
Preventive measures:
First and foremost, hospitals must adopt pricing and billing practises that are sensitive to the needs of their customers. It’s also crucial to educate the patient or family about the expense estimate and stick to it. If the estimate is exceeded, immediate notification should be issued.
Cost estimation at the time of Admission, explanation by the Consultant or Medical Officer helps the patient/relative to understand and ask about any change in care plan and costs associated with it. If there is any change in the care plan, consent of the costs associated and the informed decision should be given to the patient’s relatives with detailing the consequences of continuing the care plan and importance of changing the care plan and the desired outcome predicted. If the costs is huge, the intermittent change should be counselled by the treating consultant himself as the patient and relative solely trust on his/her consultant for better clinical outcome.
Negligent Behaviour
Rudeness, apathy, negligence, and other forms of inappropriate behaviour by staff irritate patients and/or family members, resulting in a low rating. While patients used to be tolerant of healthcare staff’s behaviour as long as they received good care, that tolerance is eroding. Most patients and family members now take offence if they are not treated properly. It’s even worse if the behaviour problem is caused by a doctor.
Preventive measures:
Hospital staff, especially doctors, should be educated on the need of treating patients and relatives with respect. Soft-skill should be a part of the training (from a professional body) for all the employees who have direct interaction with patients. It is very necessary to educate the staff about the rights of the patients and it is their prime duty to protect. Patient Rights and Responsibilities is the main pillar of NABH and violation of patient right, its early detection, corrective and preventive action is adjudged during the entire process of evaluating patient safety and quality care.
Longer waiting time
Long wait times, frequent staff errors, shortcomings in services, lack of management, and other inefficiencies are perceived as inefficiencies by patients adding to their discontent. However, reports reveal that, while inefficiencies irritate them, people may still give the hospital a good rating if other factors, such as treatment, behaviour, and billing, are all in order. When hospital inefficiencies are combined with any of the other characteristics, customers are more likely to offer the lowest rating.
Preventive measures:
Hospital duties are complicated, and effectively managing them can be difficult. This is usually determined by management ability, and it may take time to improve. Hospitals must, nevertheless, strive for efficiency in those tasks that directly affect patients. Admission, discharge, billing, investigation, pharmacy, and other processes, for example, must be prioritised so that patients do not have to battle. Customers’ displeasure with inefficiencies is considerably reduced when information is provided to them on a regular and timely basis.
National Accreditation Board for Healthcare Providers (NABH) focuses on all these issues and many more which are directly related to patient safety and quality care. Implementing even the Pre entry Certification will help you in dealing with all your day to day consequences and shall even make the employees accountable, responsible and decisive.
Visit www.thecaremarque.com to understand their approach in implementing the NABH Certification process in your hospital.