What You Should Know:
– Vizient, Inc. the nation’s largest healthcare performance improvement company, and Qualtrics, the leader and creator of the experience management category, today announced an innovative strategic partnership to employ experience metrics to transform the way healthcare organizations measure and improve performance.
– The partnership will help organizations more deeply understand relationships between quality, safety, and patient experiences.
A New Approach to Healthcare Performance Measurement: Leveraging Patient Experience to Improve Clinical Outcomes
A collaboration between Vizient and Qualtrics is set to transform healthcare performance measurement by integrating key metrics and benchmarks from both organizations. This partnership aims to drive significant improvements in patient outcomes and operational efficiency by moving beyond traditional, siloed data measurement practices. University of Utah Health, Memorial Hermann Health System, and Stanford Health Care—recognized leaders in clinical care and patient experience—participated in a pilot analysis, with findings presented at the Vizient Connections Summit. The initial analysis revealed that clearer medical provider communication is linked to better clinical outcomes, including reductions in emergency room visits, complications, and readmissions.
A New Era of Performance Measurement
Historically, healthcare organizations have relied on retrospective data from isolated systems to assess performance and patient satisfaction. The Vizient-Qualtrics collaboration introduces a forward-looking, dynamic approach that enables proactive management of clinical challenges and continuous improvement through real-time, actionable metrics. These metrics evolve with changing patient expectations and clinical environments, allowing healthcare systems to address issues before they are reflected in performance data.
Key outcomes anticipated from this collaboration include:
– Predicting clinical and operational outcomes, such as readmission rates and adverse events, based on patient feedback
– Identifying correlations between patient experience and clinical performance, helping healthcare leaders address gaps before they impact outcomes
– Defining modern patient experience measurement, incorporating real-time performance, patient-reported outcomes, and patient-centered principles
Foundational Analysis with Leading Health Systems
The pilot analysis, conducted with University of Utah Health, Memorial Hermann Health System, and Stanford Health Care, demonstrates how patient experience influences clinical outcomes. Key findings include:
– Positive communication between patients and caregivers significantly reduced length of stay, 30-day readmissions, and emergency room visits
– Inpatients with limited healthcare access who felt their preferences were not considered in discharge planning were more likely to visit the emergency department within 30 days
– Negative ratings of provider explanations exacerbated dissatisfaction when complications occurred, while positive ratings mitigated the impact of adverse clinical events
Opportunities for other health systems to participate will be available following the completion of this initial phase. This partnership empowers healthcare organizations to adopt a data-driven approach to improving patient satisfaction and clinical outcomes, aligning with the demands of a value-based care environment.
Dr. David Levine, Chief Medical Officer for Vizient, emphasized the significance of this initiative, stating, “By integrating quality, safety, and experience data, we can uncover the most impactful drivers of healthcare performance across multiple domains. This level of insight has not been previously achieved due to fragmented datasets and limited analytics.”
