Cleveland Clinic Canada improves understanding of the patient experience and increases efficiency to take action by using Tickit.

Cleveland Clinic previously used a generic digital survey tool to capture information directly from patients, but they weren’t getting the consistency and quality of data required to accurately measure program success. “We need feedback on our delivery of patient care but [patients] just weren’t answering the routine surveys”, commented Heather Siekierko, Manager of Patient Experience. Patients often skipped questions, didn’t complete the survey, and rarely gave additional comments regarding their experience and outcomes. The clinic knew patients valued the Executive Health program, but without honest and unbiased feedback directly from patients, they felt uninformed when making important program decisions.

Another added challenge with the routine survey was the inability to efficiently and securely distribute patient feedback to stakeholders across the organization. Doing so required significant manual data entry and reporting time from staff, preventing them from spending more time on patient care.  As a result, reviewing and acting upon the feedback took as long as 3-4 weeks, delaying follow-up and potentially resulting in a sub-optimal patient experience.

Solution

Tickit, a comprehensive surveying solution improves response rates and data quality, boosting staff efficiency.

Over the two year period following implementation of Tickit, a total survey solution based on the principles of Digital Empathy, Cleveland Clinic saw a 42% increase in patient usage as well as greater engagement from patients.  Previously patients would only answer ranked questions (i.e. “on a scale of 1-5…”), but suddenly the Clinic found that with Tickit, patients provided more granular and personalized responses, choosing to answer the free-response questions at length. The power of Digital Empathy revealed an entirely new understanding of patient needs and level of satisfaction with The Clinic’s services, further supporting the ‘patients first’ care initiative.  “Unhappy situations happen, but with Tickit, we can act on those experiences to create a positive end result for both the patient and provider…Previously, our information felt loose-ended with the digital surveys but with Tickit, it comes together in a much more comprehensive manner”.

In addition to richer data, automated reporting and analytics in real-time drastically improved workflow efficiencies in reporting and acting upon patient feedback at the Clinic. Previously, the entire process to collect, review, report, and follow-up on patient feedback was a bottleneck to better outcomes. With Tickit, the Clinic began to reach out immediately to the patient while simultaneously reviewing the feedback amongst the care team. With a more efficient workflow, Tickit improved communication within the Clinic, while patients felt communication with staff improved as well.

What’s next

Making patients feel safe and predicting their needs with Tickit.

Tickit has greatly improved Cleveland Clinic’s ability to respond to patient feedback and has increased both communication and understanding across the organization about the patient experience. The Executive Health program at Cleveland Clinic Canada mimics the patient engagement and feedback initiatives at Cleveland Clinic Ohio, where there is an entire department dedicated to the patient experience. Cleveland Clinic Canada is proud to instill those same high standards and be seen as a leader within the Cleveland Clinic family through their use of  Tickit, and to introduce Tickit to more clinic departments in the coming years. Implementing Tickit across multiple departments will further leverage the value of high-fidelity patient data to further measure and expand the ‘patients first’ ethos to the greatest extent possible. “At Cleveland Clinic Canada, we want to link more information and more departments to Tickit. Any way that we can improve our processes makes me happy, so I’m excited about how we will expand the use of Tickit in the coming year.”– Heather Siekierko, Manager of Patient Experience, Cleveland Clinic Canada.

About Cleveland Clinic Canada and the Executive Health program