Analyzing Healthcare Customer Satisfaction: Trends and Survey Design

This report explores the dynamic landscape of healthcare marketing, emphasizing the crucial role of customer satisfaction. It begins by defining healthcare marketing and its strategies to attract patients. The report then delves into current trends, highlighting the importance of patient involvement and the slow adaptation of customer-centric practices in the healthcare industry. It discusses the significance of personalized attention, patient-related services, and the use of tools like surveys to gauge satisfaction. A detailed analysis of patient satisfaction surveys follows, outlining their advantages, such as ease of administration and cost-effectiveness, while also acknowledging potential drawbacks, such as patient discomfort and closed-ended questions. The report includes a sample patient satisfaction survey designed for elderly clients, focusing on accessibility, waiting times, staff, and overall service quality. Finally, the report concludes by reiterating the importance of integrating marketing strategies to acquire and engage patients, ultimately emphasizing the challenge of delivering high-quality services.

Running head: HEALTHCARE
Marketing
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Introduction- Healthcare marketing is an umbrella term that refers to strategies used by
healthcare providers, suppliers, advocacy groups, and insurers, with the aim of attracting new
consumers (patients), and increasing their knowledge and awareness regarding the particular
healthcare organization or business (Hyder & Fregidou-Malama, 2018). This essay will elaborate
on current trends in healthcare customer satisfaction, and will also illustrate the advantages and
disadvantages of patient satisfaction survey.
Discussion- Consumer satisfaction is imperative in the domain of health and social care
services, in order to accomplish increased involvement of patients in the process of
implementation of care giving strategies. It also helps in enhancing compliance among the
patients, and facilitates the healthcare providers to avoid increasing displeasure among their
consumers. The issue has been recognized particularly complex, owing to the multifaceted nature
of implementing treatment for curing health ailments (Meesala & Paul, 2018). Although delivery
of excellent consumer satisfaction is of utmost importance for success of major enterprises, the
healthcare industry has been found to be typically slow in adapting practices that place an
emphasis on consumer satisfaction. According to recent reports, hospitals were able to achieve
consumer satisfaction scores near an estimated 75 out of 100 for the second year, which placed
the healthcare industry in 32nd position, in relation to customer satisfaction, behind supermarkets,
gasoline stations, and banks. Recent reports also suggest that roughly 74% of healthcare
organizations have started to place an increase focus on excellence of services that are delivered
to their patients (Matejka, 2017). This can be accredited as a direct response to the contemporary
shift among patients, who have been found to display willingness in spending more time, in
order to explore best health services that are accessible and attainable (Sun et al., 2017).

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One of the four pillars of patient satisfaction and healthcare industry is governed by
delivery of personalized attention, which generally goes beyond the efforts taken by healthcare
practitioners in greeting their patients with small talk or a smile. Taking into consideration the
recent trends of consumer self-service, it is essential for healthcare organization to directly
implement patient related services that will allow the latter to gain a control on their healthcare
experiences. Some of the commonly used patient related services that have been associated with
consumer satisfaction are namely, allowing patients to observe their health records and
laboratory test results, browsing educational materials, scheduling appointment, paying bills,
finding contact information without trouble, and providing feedback (Cannon, Taylor &
Friedman, 2018). Some of the major tools that are used for obtaining an insight on customer
satisfaction include service via e-mail, mobile applications, posts, customer satisfaction score
(CSAT), net promoter score (NPS), customer effort score (CES), and social media monitoring.
The idea of patient satisfaction surveys have gained attention over the past two decades
as an essential and meaningful source for recognizing gaps and formulating effective action
plans, to improve satisfaction scores and quality of care service. Conducting patient satisfaction
surveys help the healthcare practitioners increase their understanding on the areas that require
improvement, and also facilitate gathering critical patient feedback. This acts as an essential tool
in enhancing communication between the stakeholders (Sacks et al., 2015). Some other
advantages can be accredited to the fact that the surveys are relatively hassle-free to administer
to the patients, require less than for development, are cost-effective and can even be administered
in remote locations. They also facilitate asking numerous questions about a particular subject,
thus providing adequate flexibility in analysis of the responses (Miazga et al., 2018). However,
patients might not always feel encouraged and comfortable in providing honest inaccurate

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answers. They might also lack awareness on the questions being asked. Surveys having closed-
ended questions also reduce validity of the responses.
Survey- The patient satisfaction survey that will be created for elderly clients who are
being cared for in this healthcare organization would particularly focus on knowing the
perceptions and outlooks of the patients about the services that are provided, which in turn will
help the marketing team ensure that at the needs of the clients are being addressed, and there is a
high school of patient satisfaction. The survey will first and foremost focus on accessibility to the
service, waiting time, time, payment facilities, friendliness and helpfulness, and areas that
require improvement. Based on the responses, the marketing team will be able to initiate an
action plan training, in order to successfully implement the required solutions for addressing
patient satisfaction issues.
Conclusion- To conclude, marketing of a healthcare organization typically integrates
highly-segmented, targeted and multichannel strategies to acquire appropriate patients, and
engage with them via suitable strategic outreach. Hence, delivering high quality services to
customers is considered a major challenge in all industry.

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References
Cannon, T., Taylor, S., & Friedman, S. H. (2018). Satisfaction guaranteed? Forensic consumer
satisfaction survey. International journal of mental health nursing, 27(4), 1250-1257.
Hyder, A. S., & Fregidou-Malama, M. (2018). Is context important in healthcare marketing?: A
comparison between developed and emerging markets. In Networks in Context, The 8th
meeting of the IMP Group in Asia and 34th meeting of IMP Group, Jetwing Blue,
Negombo Beach, Sri Lanka, 2nd-5th December 2018. (pp. 17-17). Industrial Marketing
and Purchasing Group.
Matejka, R. (2017). Promoting Customer Satisfaction in Healthcare. Retrieved from
https://www.healthcarebusinessinsights.com/blog/information-technology/promoting-
customer-satisfaction-healthcare/
Meesala, A., & Paul, J. (2018). Service quality, consumer satisfaction and loyalty in hospitals:
Thinking for the future. Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, 40, 261-269.
Miazga, M., Berglund, A., Kaizer, A., Kim, T., Hutchins, J. L., & Frese, M. J. F. (2018,
October). Implementation of a Patient Satisfaction Survey in an Ambulatory Surgery
Center: A Quality Improvement Initiative. In 2018 American Society of Anesthesiologists
Annual Meeting.
Sacks, G. D., Lawson, E. H., Dawes, A. J., Russell, M. M., Maggard-Gibbons, M., Zingmond, D.
S., & Ko, C. Y. (2015). Relationship between hospital performance on a patient
satisfaction survey and surgical quality. JAMA surgery, 150(9), 858-864.

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Sun, J., Hu, G., Ma, J., Chen, Y., Wu, L., Liu, Q., ... & Liu, Y. (2017). Consumer satisfaction
with tertiary healthcare in China: findings from the 2015 China National Patient
Survey. International Journal for Quality in Health Care, 29(2), 213-221.

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[Name of the Healthcare organization]
Elderly Patient Satisfaction Survey
We would request you to tell us regarding your perceptions about the services that we offer so
we can meet your wants. Your feedback will help us in enhancing these services. All answers
will be kept anonymous and confidential. Thank you for your valuable time.
Your Age: Your Sex:
Your Race/Ethnicity:
Please tell us how we are excelling in the
following areas:
GREA
T
5
GOO
D
4
OK
3
FAIR
2
POOR
1
Capacity to get in to be treated
Effortlessness of receiving care 5 4 3 2 1
Convenience of Center’s site 5 4 3 2 1
On time responses on calls 5 4 3 2 1
Hours Center is open 5 4 3 2 1
Waiting:

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Waiting time in reception 5 4 3 2 1
Waiting time for performing laboratory tests 5 4 3 2 1
Waiting time for obtaining test results 5 4 3 2 1
Staff:
Provider: (Dentist, Nurse Practitioner Physician, Physician Assistant)
Spends time with you 5 4 3 2 1
Listens to you 5 4 3 2 1
Explains you about your health 5 4 3 2 1
Gives you good counseling and
recommendations
5 4 3 2 1
Nurses and Medical Assistants:
Are helpful and friendly 5 4 3 2 1
Can resolve your queries 5 4 3 2 1
Please tell us how we are excelling in the following
areas:
GREA
T
5
GOO
D
4
O
K
3
FAI
R
2
POO
R
1
All Others:
Can resolve your queries 5 4 3 2 1

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Are helpful and friendly 5 4 3 2 1
Payment :
Explain the payment 5 4 3 2 1
Easy collection of money 5 4 3 2 1
Facility:
Clean and neat building 5 4 3 2 1
Comfortable 5 4 3 2 1
Easy access and facilities for older adults 5 4 3 2 1
Privacy 5 4 3 2 1
Information is kept confidential 5 4 3 2 1
1. What do you like best?
2. What do you like least?
3. Are there any suggestions for upgrading?
4. Will you refer your friends and relatives?
Thank you for completing our Survey!