Patient satisfaction is a crucial issue for healthcare facilities. With the tremendous amount of competition currently available in the healthcare sector, hospitals have to be doing everything that they can to ensure that they are meeting the demands of modern patients.
What many healthcare professionals don’t realize is how big of an impact strategic procurement management has on patient satisfaction scores. While many in the medical world might think that patient satisfaction scores hinge solely on interactions with doctors, there are actually several ways that effective procurement management can improve the standing of a hospital in the eyes of patients, thus raising their patient satisfaction score.
1. Purchasing the Newest Equipment
The field of medical technology and supplies has advanced tremendously over the past several centuries. Antiquated tools and equipment have fallen out of use in favor of more modernized, sophisticated tools.
The same goes for your facility’s supplies. The more modern they are, the easier it is to meet the needs of patients and provide them with a comfortable experience. It is important that you can strike a fair balance between buying supplies that are new enough to improve patient satisfaction and supplies that are priced in a way that fits into your budget. You will need to do some research about what is available so that you can have a good understanding of which supplies are the best ones to purchase.
2. Keep Your Supplies In Order
The more organized your supplies are, the easier it will be for the nurses and staff members to get to them. There are few things worse than having your patient visit times delayed because someone was not able to find a piece of equipment where it usually is. Be sure that you have consistent, easy-to-understand systems in place for how you will order your supplies and keep them, whether you have multiple rooms devoted to supplies or just a single closet.
3. Train for Contingencies
The odds are good that there is at least one particular person at your organization that is responsible for strategic procurement management. This person or department usually oversees a variety of procurement management techniques, from selecting the right vendor to placing purchase orders.
If this person gets sick, goes on vacation, or decides to leave, it can cause some serious headaches for a hospital or healthcare facility, which in turn can drive down patient satisfaction scores. Because of this, it is important that you have a plan in place for who can take over management of these areas if something were to happen to the people that currently handle them. Otherwise, your quality of patient care may suffer. In addition to replacing internal management you want a contingency plan for your supplies. What happens if they are late or go out of business? Having a supplier back up plan will be extremely helpful too to eliminate gaps of service.
Any endeavor with the goal of improving your patient satisfaction score is a worthwhile one. But patient care is not the only way to improve scores! By streamlining your strategic procurement management, you can make people happier to visit your facility, improving scores, all while saving money on your medical supplies.
