Six Management Strategies That Will Help Your Team Provide Better Patient Care

A patient’s experience at your hospital or healthcare facility is paramount to its reputation. For this reason, it’s important to implement strategies that focus on patient-centered care—improving and maintaining the efficiency and accuracy of care through good communication and care coordination. All departments within your facility need to be on-board with the delivery of an exceptional patient experience, but you can begin within your own team. Here’s what you can do.

Six ways to ensure the provision of good patient care

To support the concept of patient-centered care, you can follow a few key strategies:

1. Fill your staff with highly qualified candidates. Ensuring that your staff has the education, skills and experience necessary to excel at your facility is the number one way to ensure good patient care. Structure your interview questions appropriately and conduct background screenings. It can also help to work with a staffing agency that specializes in the medical field. A recruiter will take care of finding, interviewing, screening and hiring the most qualified candidates for your facility.
2. Employee per diem workers to handle staffing gaps. If your team is temporarily short-handed, this can create long waiting room times, double-booked appointments, over-worked staff and possible treatment errors. During a staffing shortage, it can help to bring on a per diem staff member to help you ensure your patients are receiving the best possible care.
3. Effective communication with patients. During a medical appointment or when explaining a treatment, recommendation or discharge instructions to a patient, it’s important that he or she understands. It’s also key to get all pertinent information from the patient, especially if it will impact his or her Stress the importance of good communication with your team, including: give patients your full attention, and offer him or her the opportunity to provide information or ask questions; address the patient by the name he or she prefers; confirm the patient’s understanding of your conversation before you conclude it; and if necessary, engage any family members present.
4. Hire bi-lingual staff. A language barrier can be a hurdle to a patient’s understanding of treatment information or discharge instructions. Depending on the location of your facility, a language other than English may be dominant. Take steps to employ front desk and medical staff that speak a second or even third language, based on need.
5. Keep patient records up to date. Your patient records help you track everything from patient history to lab results and they must be accurate for efficient patient care. This way, you can avoid treatment errors, unnecessary duplication of tests, etc. For best results, staff should update the patient’s medical record as soon as possible after an appointment, treatment, etc.
6. Recognize employees who go above and beyond. Your star workers should be recognized for excellent work. You can reward good work with anything from verbal praise to performance incentives. This will help encourage all staff members to keep up the good work.

Patients are the heart of your business

The quality of care your facility provides is vital to its success. You can take these steps to help ensure you’re delivering the level of care that sets your organization above the rest.

Are you in need of medical staff?

KTE Services can help. We specialize in the placement of specialized nurses, physician assistants, anesthesiologists and pain management professionals with permanent placement and per diem positions across the country. To learn more, contact KTE Services today.