Human Factors May Be the Most Important Indicators of Practice Success

We’ve all experienced it as a patient or consumer. We walk in for our appointment. The person behind the front desk is busy entering information into the computer and we wait until they reach a stopping point. When they begin to engage us the phone rings, and the ringing telephone takes priority over us standing in front of them. Once they can finally engage us, they provide a clipboard with paperwork and let us know, “We’ll call you back when we are ready for you.”

At that moment, how do you feel? We all know the answer to that question, but this is a real-world scenario that happens in business and medical practices every day. The front desk is critical because for any new patient, this is their first impression of patient care when they walk into your practice. However, these types of examples can apply to any point in the patient journey from appointment scheduling to check-out and beyond. Our intention is to be quick and efficient. Our impact is that the patient may feel de-prioritized. What is the impact it may have on patient attitude, openness to services, re-appoints or overall time they want to spend in that practice?

This type of failed interaction will affect your revenue. If a patient is having a great experience with your practice, then they are open to your treatment recommendations, products and services that you provide, even if they are not covered by third party payers. However, if they are having a poor experience, not only are they closed off to your recommendations, they are less likely to return to the practice at all.

When you break it all down, all types of businesses are about individuals choosing (or not choosing) to do business with other people. When considering any new business or continuation with an existing business, we usually have a few options to consider, and then it comes down to the Human Factors:

How do I feel about the people that I may be doing business with, especially for an ongoing relationship such as a doctor’s office?

What are Human Factors?

Human factors consider how other humans want and need to be engaged to have a good or great experience with your business or practice. They include both the intentional and unintentional messages that patients receive from you and your team.

It stands to reason: Happy patients will spend their time and money with your practice. They are comfortable with you and your staff and trust the recommendations you have, which means they are open to a broader variety of products and services that you prescribe.

Is it customer service? It goes well beyond that. The Golden Rule says we are to treat others the way WE want to be treated. No disrespect to the Golden Rule, but not everyone wants to be treated the way you want to be treated. If we elevate that to the Platinum Rule, then that says you treat others how THEY want to be treated. This means that treating everyone the same way, even if it’s the way you’d want to be treated, may leave many of your patients with an experience that’s less than “wow” in their minds.

There are some common differences that we should consider across the respective patient demographics. One example, Patient A is a high-touch, face-to-face person. Referring Patient A to a portal for all their provider-patient interaction will feel like a cold and impersonal experience. Patient B is a millennial who prefers texting over phone calls. Requiring an office visit to share routine test results is a high investment of time for your practice, but is it valued by your patients? Patient A will value that face-to-face follow-up, while Patient B will resent the demand on their time.

Human factors consider things that cannot be forced into a one-size-fits-all approach to patient care because when it comes to people, there is no one best pathway for everyone. This may sound complex, but it doesn’t have to be. It can be as simple as asking a patient how they would prefer to receive information and then implementing that method as an option in your practice. Consideration of the differing Human Factors will allow better patient engagement overall and will make it easier to satisfy the needs of different patient types.

Why is Common Sense not so common?

In many practices, we may have the wrong priorities taking precedence. For example, we want to ensure that the doctor is never kept waiting, but at the same time if we were to ask the doctor, what takes precedence, taking care of the new patient walking in the door, or getting that data entered into the EMR, the doctor may say, the patient takes precedence, or at least we hope that’s what she’d say. Accuracy and efficiency are important, but it can’t come at the expense of patient experience.

In other situations, we may have the wrong people in key customer-facing roles. They may have great technical skills but lack human factor skills, which can lead to low Net Promoter Scores, patient complaints, and poor reviews. In fact, most patient complaints have nothing to do with the doctor or the clinical experience. Most have to do with how they were treated before or after they see the doctor. In most cases, the doctor isn’t even privy to those parts of the patient journey where the disconnects occur, since they are busy providing patient care. How can we ensure that when team members are left to make these decisions on their own, with the absence of oversight, they are keeping the patient at the center of their focus?

At the UCLA Medical Center, their CICARE (pronounced See-I-CARE) process begins the hiring process for new associates by assessing whether candidates have the right human factors in place and then moves on to evaluating for the technical aspects of the role. It’s easier to train for technical skills than for behavioral or people skills, and whether it’s a doctor, an MA, PA, NP or anyone else in the practice, having the right human factors priorities in place is crucial to success and much harder to train to than the technical aspects of the role.

What can be done to elevate Human Factors within your practice?

A lot! There are many training protocols that can be implemented, but the first course of action is an awareness, acknowledgment, and sincere desire to do better in this area. Instilling those common-sense measures doesn’t take a lot of time or reengineering.

The key to success is awareness of what we are putting a premium on within the practice. For example, if the most important key performance indicator (KPI) is efficiency and how quickly we can turn a patient, then very likely we are going to compromise on human factors. Efficiency is important, but it also must be balanced with the patient experience.

Practice priorities begin with leadership. If we place a premium on patient satisfaction and measure the corresponding KPIs, we are likely to impact the culture, the team makeup, and the success of the practice. Patient satisfaction will not be your only priority, but happy patients can solve many other practice issues. Happy patients come back, they bring others in, and they buy more products and services. They want to see you succeed!

How can you raise your game as it relates to Human Factors?

Practice Elevation Consulting Services specializes in Human Factors assessment and training. If you sincerely want to increase practice revenue/profitability, elevate your employee engagement, your patient experience, your NPS scores, your online reputation or put the Platinum Rule into practice, reach us at info@PracticeElevationCS.com

When we break it down, we choose to do business with people we like, trust and feel that have our best interests at heart. Be that practice and those people that patients WANT to come back to and send their friends and family to for their own “WOW” experience.