Gallup's research has shown that there are five key items in Gallup's 12-question employee engagement survey -- designed to measure the degree to which employees are psychologically committed to their jobs -- that have a strong influence over hospital inpatient satisfaction scores:
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The next question is, how do these individual employee engagement items affect specific, controllable measures of patient satisfaction?
Specific components of inpatient satisfaction can be divided into two categories: ratings of the processes that a hospital has in place and ratings of the people with whom patients come into contact. Specific "process" items include satisfaction with the admitting process, satisfaction with the discharge process, and satisfaction with hospital cleanliness. "People" items include satisfaction with the ability of staff members to anticipate need, and satisfaction with staff members' ability to communicate effectively. Each of these measures, among others, must be managed in order to achieve high levels of patient satisfaction and loyalty.
All five of the employee engagement items listed above substantially impact patient satisfaction with specific process items. However, two of the five items -- "I have the materials and equipment to do my job right" and "My associates or fellow employees are committed to doing quality work" -- appear to have a broader impact, influencing not only process ratings, but also those on items measuring patient satisfaction with people.
Relating "Materials and Equipment" and "Commitment to Quality" to Patient Satisfaction
Gallup's research on healthcare workplaces indicates that providing sufficient materials and equipment at work requires ensuring easy access not only to inanimate tools, but also to sufficient staff support, and to the knowledge needed to get the job done right. In this sense, the materials and equipment question influences satisfaction ratings of both "process" and "people" factors.
Patient satisfaction with process components such as the discharge process is influenced by both the quality of the materials patients receive (e.g., discharge education materials) and the knowledge of the employees overseeing the process. But lack of sufficient materials and equipment, including lack of sufficient staffing, can also provide a major barrier to a staff's ability to anticipate patient needs -- a people item.
It is easy to see why employees' commitment to quality would be strongly related to patient satisfaction with people items. Employees who are expressly committed to quality tend to communicate well with both their patients and each other. But employee commitment to quality also affects process ratings. When a committed employee perceives that an inefficient process is negatively affecting a patient, the employee will most likely do anything that he or she needs to do to improve that process, thereby improving the patient experience.
What Does This Tell Hospital Management?
The key to inpatient satisfaction is the relationships between patients (or patients' family members) and hospital employees. Employees must be engaged to make these relationships successful, but they must also be supported by efficient hospital processes that enable them to succeed.
While each of Gallup's 12 employee engagement items (and especially the five discussed in this series) impacts patient satisfaction, two items -- "materials and equipment" and "commitment to quality" -- have the broadest impact. High employee scores on these two items are most likely to promote high-quality care, which is what patients are really seeking from their inpatient experience.
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