Want to enhance your patient care? Start with your patient feedback.
Collecting patient feedback is an excellent way to maintain the highest quality of care and is key to ensuring that your practice operates at peak performance levels.
It helps healthcare professionals understand the patient experience, hear any concerns, and implement their suggestions – ultimately improving the quality of care provided.
By actively seeking and using patient feedback, healthcare organizations can develop a patient-centered approach, drive innovation, and build patient trust and satisfaction.
Today, we’re exploring the benefits of feedback collection. Plus, this blog is stacked with valuable insights on how to gather feedback – and utilize it – to improve your services.
1. Conduct surveys (via email or text messages)
Conducting surveys is an effective strategy for gathering valuable feedback from patients.
Instead of running a big survey once every few months, the best way to use surveys is to have them ‘always-on’. This means building feedback requests into your process so that after every patient appointment, a client receives a request for feedback shortly after.
This works on two levels. Firstly, it ensures that your wins are noticed and any issues can be quickly addressed. And secondly, it means you have a continuous stream of reviews.
- Text messages: You can send convenient survey links directly to patients’ mobile phones, enabling quick responses even on the go.
- Emails: Utilize Pabau’s email marketing feature to send survey requests to patients via email, allowing for more in-depth feedback.
And with the help of Pabau, you can send the right message at the right time to improve patient journeys. For example, you might wish for the surveys to be sent straight after customers’ appointments so their experience is fresh. Or perhaps the treatment take a while to fully take effect or heal, so sending the survey slightly later makes more sense.
You can also:
- Review requests built into the booking process – simply check a box
- A question bank of survey questions that you can customize to your practice
- Customizable times to send a review request is, specific to a service
- Prompt clients to share four and five reviews on Google
And don’t forget about marketing! Positive patient reviews collected through Pabau can boost your clinic’s reputation. Publishing these reviews online showcases your strengths, provides social proof, and attracts new patients seeking high-quality care.
Example survey questions to ask
- How would you rate your overall experience during your visit today?
- Were you satisfied with the level of care provided by our staff?
- Did you feel that your privacy and confidentiality were respected during your visit?
- Did you experience any difficulties in scheduling your appointment with us? If yes, please elaborate.
- Did you have any issues with the billing process or insurance handling during your visit?
2. Ask patients to fill out feedback forms
Feedback forms offer a structured system for collecting specific patient information about interactions and experiences within your clinic’s settings.
Unlike patient surveys, which are often more comprehensive and conducted remotely, feedback forms are usually completed on-site during the patient’s visit, which means you get for real-time feedback that reflects a client’s immediate experience.
Feedback forms are designed to ask specific questions about the patient experience. Questions cover everything from the quality of care provided to communication with healthcare providers, cleanliness and comfort of facilities, and overall satisfaction.
Another significant advantage of feedback forms is that they can be completed electronically or on paper, so they’re accessible to patients of all ages and preferences. If you print them out, simply pop them in a tray on your reception desk or on a table in the waiting area – alongside a box for people to place their surveys once they’re done.
To enhance the effectiveness, consider incorporating a mix of question formats within the form. Alongside multiple-choice queries where patients rate their experiences on a numerical scale, intersperse open-ended questions that need a more detailed response.
Example feedback form questions
- Was everything explained clearly to you by your healthcare provider?
- Were all of your concerns/questions answered? [Yes/No]
- On a scale of 1 to 10, how would you rate the cleanliness and comfort of our facilities?
- Do you have any suggestions or feedback for improving our services or enhancing the patient experience?
3. Create a landing page for your clinic's website
A landing page dedicated to collecting patient feedback is an essential tool for any clinic looking to improve its services.
From a customer service perspective, it’s a good look. It shows that you’re committed to listening to your patients’ voices, both positive and negative. If a client clicks on your landing page and they see that you actively seek and value patient feedback, they’re more likely to perceive your clinic as patient-centered and responsive to their needs.
Plus, it’s more convenient for patients, so they don’t have to leave feedback in-person when they may be in a rush. You may also get more thoughtful, considered responses.
It also provides more privacy for those who opt not to reveal their identity for different reasons. Whether they want to praise exceptional service or provide constructive criticism, a dedicated landing page gives patients a straightforward avenue to share their thoughts.
As we mentioned above, include various types of questions, such as yes/no questions, numerical rating scales, and open-text boxes to get broad range of responses.
You can also ask patients clever questions that will help you analyze specific segments of your user base. For example, ask patients their age, the treatment they received, and the practitioner they saw and categorize the responses accordingly.
This approach enables you to to identify trends, pinpoint areas for improvement, and implement targeted solutions to enhance patient satisfaction.
Landing page examples
4. Use social media to interview patients
Social media channels to use
Social media platforms are a great way to connect with patients. Plus, you can gather valuable feedback and engage with patients in a more informal and interactive way.
They also provide you with a direct line of communication outside of traditional clinical settings, allowing practitioners to connect with a diverse range of patients – including those who may not actively participate in more traditional feedback methods, like surveys.
One of the primary advantages of social media is its accessibility and reach. Social media platforms have a vast and diverse user base, spanning various demographics.
Did you know that 75% of people look online to find a doctor? When choosing a health provider, patients look critically at web presence, online business profiles, and reviews.
Patients may also feel more comfortable expressing their opinions and sharing their experiences on social media platforms, where they can engage with healthcare providers directly and participate in discussions with their peers. It’s more flexible and versatile.
Leverage Instagram’s Stories feature to ask questions, run polls, and conduct short interviews with patients. For instance, a simple yet effective poll question could be:
📊 How did you rate your last booking experience with us?
- a) Excellent
- b) Good
- c) Average
- d) Poor
- Stories on Instagram are a fun way to ask your followers questions, run polls, and solicit real-time feedback. The fact that Stories run for 24 hours only further encourages spontaneous participation, because they won’t be there forever.
- Facebook offers an all-round approach to patient engagement, allowing providers to create posts, host live video sessions, and interact with patients through comments and messages, as well as story polls. The platform’s extensive reach and diverse user base make it an ideal channel for gathering feedback and increasing community engagement.
- X’s (formerly Twitter) real-time nature and concise format make it conducive to engaging in conversations and gathering immediate feedback through tweets and direct messages. Providers can leverage trending hashtags and participate in relevant discussions to amplify their reach and gather insights from a diverse audience.
- LinkedIn is a platform where healthcare professionals can connect with each other and industry experts. It’s a great place to get feedback from patients indirectly. For example, healthcare providers can join closed groups with discussions on patient’s experiences or opinions about certain healthcare services, treatments, and trends. Professionals can also use their connections to conduct surveys and polls to get real-time feedback.
5. Call your clients
Calling your clients for feedback? Sure, why not? Phone calls with clients present a personalized and direct approach to collecting patient feedback.
Unlike the other feedback collection methods we’ve covered, phone calls allow for real-time dialogue and deeper exploration of patient feedback.
With phone calls, healthcare providers can directly engage with clients, address their concerns, and show their commitment to patient satisfaction.
Plus, clients love the personalized attention and responsiveness offered through phone calls, and it can help to build loyalty and trust in you, the healthcare provider.
Do it well, and it can be really successful, as phone calls enable healthcare providers to gather qualitative feedback that may not be captured through other methods.
Providers can ask probing questions, seek clarification on specific issues, and dive deeper into any causes of patient concerns, leading to more comprehensive and actionable insights.
Sample over-the-phone questions to ask
- How was your overall experience during your recent visit to our clinic?
- Were you provided with clear instructions regarding your treatment by our staff?
- Do you have any suggestions for improving our services or facilities?
- Would you recommend our clinic to friends or family members?
How to use patient feedback to improve your clinic
Did you know that 36% of patients have left a healthcare provider in the last two years, and eight out of 10 of them did so because of a poor in-person experience?
Improving your clinic starts with listening to your patients. By tapping into their feedback, you can discover the specific areas that need quality improvement.
1. Communication
The first step to improving your clinic is reviewing patient feedback and identifying any gaps or issues in communication that may be causing problems. By investing in staff training and better communication tools – such as confirmation emails – you can create a more positive, professional and friendly environment, where patients feel heard and understood.
2. Streamlining processes and systems
Analyzing patient feedback can reveal service-related problems you can streamline, such as long wait times or inefficient processes. Maybe your patients expect to book appointments online (and 71% of patients do?) and you’re not offering that option yet.
Improving workflows and investing in technology solutions, such as online appointment scheduling systems, can make things easier for patients and make them feel more valued.
3. Clinical quality improvement
Reviewing feedback helps identify areas for improvement and will ensure that treatments and procedures meet the highest standards of care.
What do people say about your consultations process? What feedback do you receive about your team? Regularly monitoring clinical performance and implementing evidence-based decisions enhances patient trust, confidence, safety and treatment effectiveness.
Collect patient feedback with Pabau
As we’ve explained, patient feedback is critical to running a successful practice.
But that doesn’t mean collecting feedback is easy – in fact, it can end up being an admin task that steals away hours each week. That’s why Pabau makes collecting feedback simple.
Unlike a lot of other systems that require several manual steps, our feedback tools are designed to save you time and work more efficiently…
- Automated feedback requests: Pabau has an integrated feedback request feature that makes it easy for clinics to send out feedback requests without any extra effort. With just a tick of a box, the system will automatically send out feedback requests.
- Centralized review management: Pabau’s review management tool centralizes online reviews from various sources, allowing clinics to effortlessly respond and showcase positive feedback – all in one place. No more jumping between platforms!
- Customizable survey questions: Pabau makes it easy for clinics to tailor feedback collection to meet their specific requirements. Our question bank and merge tags allow clinics to customize survey questions, making it easy to collect the feedback they need.
- Share your best reviews on Google: Building an online footprint for your brand is critical. If you have a number of Google reviews, you’re more likely to pop up in search results. That’s why Pabau prompts clients to leave four and five star reviews on Google.
- User-friendly interface: Pabau provides a user-friendly interface for adding, editing, or deleting questions, ensuring that feedback forms can be fine-tuned effortlessly to meet clinic requirements. Customize it, your way!
Experience the convenience and effectiveness of Pabau’s patient feedback system today by booking a demo with Pabau.
