While care transformation continues to lead the list of concerns for hospital and health system executives, this year two of the top four topics relate to patients’ non-clinical needs, according to The Advisory Board Company’s Annual Health Care CEO Survey. Specifically, meeting consumer expectations and patient engagement made notable moves up the list.
Nearly half (47%) of executive respondents indicated that they were extremely interested in addressing the challenge of rising consumer expectations for service. Additionally, 45% of hospital and health system executives said they were extremely interested in identifying patient engagement strategies – a four-percentage-point increase over the previous year.
“Additionally, research from The Advisory Board Company shows that providing patients with inaccurate price estimates can affect patient satisfaction. Nearly one-third of hospital and health system executives (31%) expressed extreme interest in addressing this issue and developing consumer-focused pricing strategies.
The survey asked executives about their level of concern for 25 topics, ranging from reducing drug costs to mergers and acquisitions. The top five areas of interest to hospital and health system executives are:
— Engaging physicians in minimizing clinical variation (53%);
— Redesigning health system services for population health (52%);
— Meeting rising consumer expectations for service (47%);
— Patient engagement strategies (45%); and
— Controlling avoidable utilization (44%).
There was little change in executives’ interest in working with physicians to reduce clinical variation over the past year; the topic was also the primary area of interest for executives in last year’s survey. Controlling avoidable utilization and redesigning health system services for population health both saw five-percentage-point jumps from the previous year.
Related Coverage
- Health Council Says Put Patients First
- Study Finds Consumers Want Their Physician to Lead
- Half of Patients’ Out-of-Pocket Spending for Brand Medicines Is Based on List Price
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