Publication/Presentation Date
7-26-2013
Abstract
iPad Research Proposal
Objective:
Primary: The objective of this project is to place iPads for patient use in waiting rooms in order to increase both patient education and satisfaction.
Secondary: Increasing satisfaction and education will make new patients more willing to come to our office, help to retain old patients and likely increase both press ganey and HCAHPS scores.
Timeline:
- From start to 3 months
- Administer surveys
- Obtain current press ganey and HCAHPS scores
- Collect and review data
- At 3 months
- Make iPads available to patients
- From 3 months to 6-12 months
- Continue to administer surveys
- Obtain new press ganey and HCAHPS scores
- Collect and review new data
- Compare new data to old satisfaction and education data and look for any significant changes. This will also be done with the old and new press ganey and HCAHPS scores
- Report on the results and how technology can effectively increase patient satisfaction
- From 12 months on
- We will continue to monitor the surveys to make sure that patient satisfaction remains high while testing different applications and websites to see if we can further enhance patient satisfaction and education. Once we find the best resources for our patients’ education we hope that we will be able to share our findings with other offices and departments within LVHN so that one day this may become standard throughout the network so that we may provide our patients with every tool possible to assist them during each stage of their treatment
Evaluation:
We will continue to administer our patient surveys to keep track of the changing trends in their knowledge and satisfaction. We will test the results every 3 months. This will show us 1) whether or not our hypothesis is true and 2) whether or not the increase in satisfaction was caused by the iPads. If satisfaction and education ratings rise and remain high it will be safe to assume that the installation of the iPads in the waiting room is the cause for this. The second way in which we will measure changes in our patient satisfaction and education scores is through press ganey and HCAHPS scores. We will obtain the scores from before and after the iPads are made available to patients and test to see if there is any significant difference mainly in our offices HCAHPS scores.
Also, after our initial study is completed, we plan to continue to survey our patients to ensure that our patient satisfaction scores remain high. We will test different LVHN approved applications and websites to find which combination has the greatest impact on our patients’ knowledge and experience. In this way, this project will be sustainable for an extended period of time during which we hope to find the most effective way to increase patient education in order to provide the best care possible.
Sustainability:
Once we obtain the initial funding, our research project will be self-sustaining. All we need to do is purchase the iPads and the applications to go with them and then, in the future, updates and newer applications could be purchased by our division at a nominal cost. After the initial study has been completed, we will continue to monitor the surveys to make sure that patient satisfaction remains high while testing different applications and websites to see if we can further enhance patient satisfaction and education. Once we find the best resources for patient education we hope that we will be able to share our findings with other offices and departments within LVHN so that one day this may become standard throughout the network so that we may provide our patients with every tool possible to assist them during each stage of their treatment. With this project, we hope to be innovators in the field of linking technology with patient satisfaction and education while drastically improving our patient experience.
Wait Time Display Research Proposal
Objective:
Primary: The objective of this project is to establish an electronic tracking device and post the wait times in the waiting room on a screen for the patients and families to visualize in order to increase patient satisfaction.
Secondary: Patient satisfaction is important in generating new patient visits with our group as well as retention and overall higher press ganey and HCAHPS scores.
Timeline:
- From start to 3 months
- Administer surveys
- Obtain current press ganey and HCAHPS scores
- Collect and review data
- At 3 months
- Install Symon Netlite Display
- From 3 months to 6-12 months
- Continue to administer surveys
- Obtain new press ganey and HCAHPS scores
- Collect and review new data
- Compare new data to old satisfaction data and look for any significance in the difference between the two. Do the same for the press ganey and HCAHPS scores
- Report on the results and how technology can effectively increase patient satisfaction
- From 12 months on
- We will continue to monitor the surveys to make sure that patient satisfaction remains high. We also hope to share our findings with other offices and departments within LVHN so that one day this may become standard throughout the network so that we may provide our patients with every tool possible to assist them during each stage of their treatment
Evaluation:
We will continue to measure our patient satisfaction ratings through our surveys every 3 months after we install the Netlite system. This will show us whether or not our hypothesis is true. If satisfaction ratings rise and continue to stay high after the displays installation than it will be safe to assume that the installation of the system is most likely the cause for this. The second way in which we will measure our results is through press ganey and HCAHPS scores. We will obtain the scores from before and after the Netlite display’s installation and compare the two to see if there is any significant increase, mainly in our offices HCAHPS scores. We hope that if we achieve a large increase in HCAHPS scores then one day LVHN as a whole will be able to adopt our wait-time display technology in order to increase press ganey scores and patient satisfaction in all areas of the network. After collecting all of our data we will be able to analyze our statistics through various significance tests in order to accurately determine whether or not technology can be used to increase patient satisfaction.
Sustainability:
Once we obtain the initial funding for our project it will be self-sustainable for years to come. All we need is to purchase the display and software and then we will be able to closely monitor this new technology’s effect on patient satisfaction. We plan to analyze our results every 3 months for an extended period of time to continue to test how our system affects patient satisfaction. By doing this, our office, and by extension Lehigh Valley Health Network, will be innovators in the field of linking technology with patient satisfaction and we believe that we will be able to drastically improve our patient experience.
Also, after the initial study is completed, we will continue to monitor the surveys to make sure that patient satisfaction remains high. We also hope to share our findings with other offices and departments within LVHN so that one day this may become standard throughout the network so that we may provide our patients with every tool possible to assist them during each stage of their treatment.
Published In/Presented At
Edmond, T. (2013, July 26). Robot Assisted Radical Prostatectomy Database. Poster presented at: Research Day 2013, Lehigh Valley Health Network, Allentown, PA.
Department(s)
Research Scholars, Research Scholars - Posters
Document Type
Poster
Rights Information
COPYRIGHT INFORMATION ~ When using this image, the credit information should be in the following format: Image courtesy of Lehigh Valley Health Network
Comments
Mentor: Angelo Baccala