Health is an important common good in society and plays a vital role in the lives of many people. Although the German healthcare system is well-established and has a wide diversity of health care facilities, they still face various quality management challenges. Healthcare institutions will not only have to provide a high quality of service for their patients but also an attractive work environment for their employees.
How can one stay competitive and have a 360° view of all processes and stakeholders? The answer is simple; contented employees, satisfied patients and successful business processes have one thing in common: a functioning quality management system.
Efficient and sustainable quality assurance
Healthcare providers are able to measure, monitor, assess and improve the quality of their healthcare services with a functioning quality management system. With the right solution, healthcare quality assurance and development can be achieved with just a few clicks.
Developing quality healthcare through transparency
Quality management maintains and optimizes the existing service quality as well as allows the introduction of new quality standards. It is necessary to determine the actual situation in the company before considering fitting solutions for service quality improvement. A possible method for conducting such checks is through agile project management. Spectos created a digital work plan for the healthcare institutions, within which the status quo of the respective customers are determined and recorded in a centralized system in real-time. This project management process offers the necessary flexibility and transparency for healthcare institutions to adapt the formulated goals for future service quality developments.
Bringing solutions to life
In order to have a Performance Management System, healthcare providers need to analyze how these quality objectives can be achieved. Information gaps have to be filled up through collection and evaluation of available information, so that institutions can come up with appropriate measures for service quality improvement.
Spectos has developed a cockpit that offers a fast and centralized collection, processing and evaluation of data catered for the health sector. This SaaS platform provides real-time feedback that allows healthcare institutions to respond quickly in the events of complaints.
Ask and you shall win
One solution to address the lack of understanding of patient and staff needs is to conduct surveys for patients and also for hospital employees. With the use of multi-channel questionnaires, participants can communicate their needs and comments, wherever and whenever they are. Online surveys can then be quickly evaluated, and the results can be presented in easy-to-understand reports and graphics. In addition, a start-stop function is integrated into the Spectos satisfaction survey tool. This makes it easier for participants to continue the survey in the event of an abort, thus ensuring a high response rate. Maintenance of anonymity can be guaranteed through the use of access keys for survey participants, a solution that is not possible with paper form questionnaires.
Healthcare providers require customized solutions at every point of their quality assurance process. This includes a dashboard tailored to individual needs, where healthcare institutions can access information from multiple locations as well as specific local details. For example, a healthcare dashboard enables hospitals chains to monitor the quality across all of its locations, while regional clinics can use the customized dashboards to gain insights into individual departments and obtain comprehensive information about the entire facility. The combination of filter function with in-depth questionnaires developed, allows health care facilities to do results comparison at their convenience.
Using criticism to your advantage
A structured complaint and claims management system is recommended to ensure that good service quality is achieved, as it enables a swift detection and elimination of problems facilitating quality improvement. Complaints or suggestions can be filtered by using suitable indicators or fields with open input. They can also be identified through a complaint service hotline, as part of patient surveys. A qualified support center will be handling all issues relating to the patients’ hospital stay.
But where do the healthcare providers go to get the feedback for them to analyze and implement appropriate measures? With the ticket service integrated in the Healthcare Cockpit, it systematically records new information and assigns them according to the respective departments. Problems that arise can be resolved quickly thanks to the real-time transmission of information. Healthcare providers can also generate reports from the collected data according to their needs and requirements.
AMEOS group uses the complaint management system to work on its existing issues as well as for early detection of systematic errors. In this way, AMEOS group is able to better understand both its patients and employees, as well as to make them feel valued.
Continuity is the key
At the end of the day, service quality can only be improved through consistent quality management. Most healthcare institutions are already using some form of quality assurance tools, however they still need an easy-to-use evaluation tool that presents a comprehensible presentation of results with just a few clicks. Spectos is able to provide a holistic view of all services and processes in real time. Health care institutions can integrate our solutions easily into their existing technical infrastructure and also customize the RTPM™Suite according to their needs. The integration is overseen by our experts in project management and process development.
