Patient satisfaction is one area where hospitals are under pressure to improve performance as part of Obamacare. If patients give favorable ratings they stand to gain bonus payments from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid. Penn Medicine this week inked a deal with social media customer feedback service Yorn as part of a move to improve the patient experience at its hospitals.
Users send feedback on mobile devices to medical staff. In an interview with The Philadelphia Inquirer, Meera Gupta, a surgeon at the Hospital of University of Pennsylvania who led the pilot, said it made a big difference. In one example, a patient complained about discomfort with a catheter and a urology team determined that it had been improperly inserted and fixed the problem.
“Once patients noticed that their voices were heard, their reported hospital experiences improved dramatically.”
One of the provisions of Obamacare sets out a 27-question government survey for patients to fill out. Hospitals with high scores will get a bonus payments.
