04 Sep Feedback: Are you Listening to Suggestions for a Better Homecare Agency?
From Online Reviews to Staff Engagement – Utilizing Feedback for Growth
Some say feedback is a blessing, whereas others would rather bury their head in the sand than hear criticism. Leaders should tune in to what others are saying whether it is the good, the bad, or the ugly. Homecare agencies are no exception. Well-vetted feedback can be used to improve homecare employee retention and engagement, find and fill gaps in care, and create trust amongst the team and community. When done well, implementing suggestions from others or taking action to correct a problem equals operational efficiency and managing costs.
Beyond office gossip, much can be learned about your agency from what is already available. In today’s digital world, word of mouth is largely replaced by online reviews. Opinions online can easily sway consumer decisions. The online reputation of a home healthcare agency will attract or drive away new patients.
Online Reviews
The national standard for reporting of patient experiences with home health is the Home Health Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HHCAHPS). Online reviews are from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid and allows evaluation of both quality and customer satisfaction by means of star ratings at a glance. The patient experience ratings can be evaluated further by categories such as professionalism of the team, communication, recommendations of care to friends and family as well as addressing common topics pertinent to patients. The quality star ratings measure the timeliness of care and outcomes of care for common facets of home care. Is your agency regularly evaluating survey results as compared to top competitors and the national or state average? Is your agency celebrating the team when they achieve good or improved ratings for quality or the patient experience?
A simple Google search can provide anecdotal comments about your agency. Likely, you have seen the online reviews, but are you doing anything to mitigate complaints? Is your agency reviewing online reviews regularly? Agencies should utilize the components of service recovery, which is a proven way to recover patients or families or restore confidence after experiencing a problem. Identify trends or themes in the reviews to determine improvement projects and respond to negative comments tactfully. The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality suggests implementing the service recovery intervention through six steps:
- Apologize
- Listen, ask questions
- Fix the problem quickly and fairly.
- Offer atonement.
- Follow up.
- Remember your promises.
It is important to build community trust and prove you can take ownership over a poor experience. Be sure to include what your agency is doing or going to do to make a poor experience right. Be mindful of HIPAA compliance in your response and offer a point of contact for further mitigation if necessary.
Internal Evaluation
Besides documenting the facts, do your agency’s incident reports offer a place to offer suggestions from the reporting individual for ways to prevent the occurrence in the future? Frontline staff are often getting concerns reported from patients or family members directly before formal documentation of either an incident or complaint. Do staff know how to properly manage informal concerns brought up during visits? Are the details and information on these incidents being saved within a database, home health software quality control area, or other means of electronic data storage? National expert on service recovery in healthcare, Dr. Wendy Leebov suggests five components must be in place to handle customer complaints and all members of the team should be educated on their importance. Agencies should:
- Develop a method for customer complaints, and encourage any feedback
- Identify the steps staff should take to manage complaints alone
- Define a process that begins with service recovery and ends with an improvement or elimination
- Clearly define policies and procedures on how the organization will manage complaints
- Educate staff on elements of service recovery
Staff Perspectives
When staff decide to leave, are they given an exit interview to determine the root cause of their decision? What becomes of this information? Using exit interviews is a powerful tool to get a better picture of what is happening within the company that can be improved. If not formally in person, give exit interviews online through a survey. Most employees know how important it is to leave a position on good terms. An employee is likely more honest with feedback when they have another position lined up and may also want to better the experience for their previous coworkers. Building an exit interview into the exit process will help the agency owner find gaps in training, mentorship, the agency’s culture and overall processes of the company if they don’t have a good grasp on issues within the agency.
Ways to Engage and Learn More
Gathering feedback from employees and patients at regular intervals will help in two ways; identify trending concerns and evaluate if progress has been made on earlier concerns. To get honest feedback from others about the agency, a blame culture environment should be avoided. Employees need to understand that reporting concerns or errors will not be penalized, and patients need to know feedback can remain anonymous to decrease any concerns of retaliation. Giving honest feedback and reporting errors or near-miss events is an opportunity for learning and potentially improving a process within the organization. In most cases, reporting a concern or mistake results from errors with systems. Information can be gathered from:
- Anonymous employee satisfaction or culture surveys
- Open door hours with leadership
- Forums held before or after all staff meetings
- Suggestion boxes or idea cards for employees and patients either placed in physical locations or created online
- Regular check-ins or follow-ups with patients with previous concerns
Make it Count
Take a look at your own skills as a leader. Are you aware of your own persona? Do you have self-awareness, as defined by the ability to understand your thoughts, feelings, beliefs, personality, and interactions with those around you? Are you hearing what others are saying, yet not listening or giving off an impression that you are not really interested in their thoughts? Leaders have a lot on their plate.
In summary, when it comes to getting real feedback to improve your home health care agency, it is essential for homecare agency management to momentarily remove the focus on their individual roles to engage in active listening, while withholding judgment, and being fully present.
Helpful links:
Five components must be in place to handle customer complaints – Dr. Wendy Leebov
Author’s Note: Views, information, and guidance in this resource are intended for information only. We are not rendering legal, financial, accounting, medical, or other professional advice. Alora disclaims any liability to any third party and cannot make any guarantee related to the content.
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Alora’s home health software solution is ideal for agencies operating in both skilled and non-skilled care. Managing workflow for administrative and caregiving staff becomes easier with the right technology tools. Alora has been engineered with the goal of simplification of day-to-day tasks in the office and in the field, allowing agencies to focus on patient care, workflow efficiency, and growth.
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