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December 29, 2022

Home / 2022 Highlights: Helping you put Human Understanding into practice
December 29, 2022 | Patient Experience (PX), Pediatric

2022 Highlights: Helping you put Human Understanding into practice

NRC Health appreciates the opportunity to guide you in trends and competitive insights to help you engage your patients and employees to drive loyalty and retention. Here are just a few of the ways we have highlighted your voice, your insights, and your results in 2022.

Astounding Human Understanding Program Case Studies

During 2022, NRC Health case studies validated the power of personalized communication and care, and the effects personalized care has on engagement, customer retention, and brand loyalty. Here are two high-performing organizations that leveraged NRC Health’s Human Understanding™ Program to better deliver the communication and metric capabilities they need to turn their strategic aspirations into action to improve care, enhance performance, and catalyze growth.

Personalized Care Boosts Customer Retention and Brand Loyalty

Virtua Health, based in southern New Jersey, supplements consumer feedback with actual utilization when strategizing about retention and loyalty. The healthcare leader also looks at network integrity using its customer-relationship-management system and integrates NRC Health data to track customer retention, incorporating nearly two million calls annually.

Highlights:

  • 384% growth in online reviews
  • 3.89 to 4.53 average on a five-star rating scale on third-party websites
  • 13x increase in members of Community Insights panels

Check out how Virtua Health activated a Human Experience Council and increased its NPS Score from 79.9 to 81.6.

Powerful nSights Trends

In August 2022, NRC Health introduced nSights, a trend-based analysis using Marketing Insights and experience surveys to identify impactful healthcare trends and translate them into actionable bottom-line steps to improve care.

Here are just a few trends we covered this year: 

We look forward to providing in-depth monthly reporting to our partners in 2023.

Insightful Articles

2022 was a year that delivered news focusing on innovation, emerging healthcare issues, and even some lighthearted fun about how partners best engage employees and patients. Take a look at just a few of our favorite articles this year.

Innovation: Harris Health’s Innovative Meds-to-Beds program ensures that hospital patients are successful with prescriptions after discharge.

The Meds-to-Beds program, a bedside delivery service, helps patients leave the hospital with their prescriptions in hand to take care of their health when they go home. Harris Health System pharmacists deliver prescriptions to the bedside for each patient enrolled in the program, allowing a more in-depth counseling session than a patient might receive at a store or drive-through. This level of comprehensive care is provided to improve medication comprehension and adherence and eliminate or decrease hospital readmissions.

Harris Health System has achieved its goal of prescription processing in the pharmacy in under an hour for six months. The organization also met a majority of their HCAHPS patient-satisfaction goals, with an internal goal of greater than 80%—which is equal to or greater than the NRC Health 70th percentile benchmarks, based on the average of the entire Harris Health System for specific questions.  
 
Discover the positive effects of offering patients a clear understanding of what their medicine is for and a supply to go home.  

Patient Engagement: Animal-assisted therapy offers hope and healing to patients at Phoenix’s Childrens 

The Animal-Assisted Therapy Program at Phoenix Children’s brings just the right attention small patients need to feel more loved and comfortable at a hospital—all while improving their physical and mental conditions.

Phoenix Children’s Animal Assisted Therapy Program (AAT) currently has 36 volunteer therapy animals, including 34 dogs and two cats, all registered with Pet Partners or similar professional organizations, plus two full-time employed facility dog handlers and their specially trained dogs. When staff recognize an opportunity to use animal-assisted therapy to benefit a patient, they enter a request just like they would for an X-ray or a lab test. Then a coordinator matches the patient with the best therapy animal for the job and sends a team to the patient’s room with goals for a visit. 

Research shows that having touch or eye contact makes a difference in a patient’s experience. And if you can have something like pet therapy that stimulates a patient’s brain in a different way to think about something other than their current state, it improves their ability to cope. 

Meet Service Dogs Gertie and Checkers and learn how unique human-animal bonds help patients heal. 


Employee Recognition: Maine Medical Center Patients Have Nothing “Bundt” Love and Appreciation for Employees

How do you nourish team morale and recognize healthcare providers for the unique way they care for patients? If you’re the PX leaders at Maine Medical Center, you get creative in demonstrating appreciation for the patient experience your caregivers provide.

In January 2021, Maine Medical Center launched a monthly pilot program for its inpatient, radiology, and emergency departments to deliver gorgeously ornate Nothing Bundt Cake “Bundtlets”—individually packaged personal gourmet bundt cakes with frosting—to celebrate team members who are mentioned by name in NRC Health’s patient surveys.  

The connection between exemplary care and patient experience and the fact that patients remembered a care team member’s name—even while undergoing the complexity of an inpatient stay—really resonates with the team at Maine Medical Center.

Care teams quickly embraced “Care So Good They Remembered My Name.” 

Find out more about how you could create a program that honors exceptional moments for special patient comments.

Inspiring Positive Shifts

NRC Health’s Patient No Longer podcast features healthcare leaders who inspire a positive shift in the customer experience and Human Understanding. Hosted by Ryan Donohue, Strategic Advisor for NRC Health, the podcast takes you inside the minds of healthcare leaders and innovators who are changing the customer experience. Each episode dives into strategic initiatives that impact the healthcare consumer journey. 

This year, we covered topics from sustainability to consumerism, patient experience, how to handle burnout, and why healthcare systems should not rule out TikTok to reach consumers. Here are just a few of our podcast episodes that are making a difference with leaders: 

C-suite leaders also joined the conversation to deliver insights on mission, vision, and strategy. Don’t miss these topics: 

Growing Partnerships

NRC Health announced that it is now a Supporting Partner of The Beryl Institute, a global network of healthcare professionals and experience champions. This new partnership represents the shared commitment of multiple organizations to the patient-experience movement and underscores NRC Health’s dedication to improving the patient experience through Human Understanding. 

As a Diamond Supporting Partner, NRC Health will support The Beryl Institute in expanding resources, growing the healthcare market, and providing ongoing opportunities to collaborate in helping healthcare organizations deliver the best possible patient experience. 

NRC Health has been an avid supporter of The Beryl Institute for many years through its participation in webinars and conferences and the Institute’s Patient Advocacy Community Membership Work Group. The partnership will expand content and access for members across a global community.

“The need for more patient-centered healthcare has never been more apparent than now,” said Helen Hrdy, Chief Growth Officer at NRC Health. “We are delighted to partner with The Beryl Institute and bring our unique perspective on Human Understanding to improve the patient experience across all care settings.”