Making your plan to keep patients happy

Last month, Jane Braithwaite described why patient experience is so important. This month, she gets practical and discusses how to get started or review and evolve your current strategy.

Your patients must be at the centre of every aspect of your thinking. To improve patient experience, then, patients must be put first. 

When producing any strategy, and particularly when considering patient experience, the key components to consider are your vision statement and your goals and objectives.

Your vision statement focuses on tomorrow and describes what you want to become. Many companies create both a mission and vision statement, with their mission statement describing what they are today.

If we take HCA Healthcare for example, its mission and vision statements are as follows:

Mission – Our mission is to provide compassionate care and exceptional service to every patient, every day.

Vision – Our vision is to be a world-class hospital.

It also has a clear set of values, which you can see listed on its website and you may find these interesting and potentially helpful. 

In developing your patient experience strategy, you may wish to develop your mission and vision statement and your values, and I would highly encourage this. 

As a minimum, I suggest you need clarity on what you aspire to be and therefore your vision statement is essential.