Case Study
Baby Memorial Hospital Transforms its Patient Experience Across Multiple Touch Points
THE CHALLENGE
In alignment with its ‘More than Care’ philosophy, BMH was searching for a partner to streamline its patient journey
THE SOLUTION
BMH received a full suite of PRM solutions from BestDoc, spanning various stages of the patient journey whether while waiting for doctors, making OP and IP payments or providing feedback.
THE RESULTS
Patients of BMH readily embraced BestDoc’s solutions. This was evident through statistics across touchpoints.
THE NEED FOR PRM SOLUTION AT BHM
BMH wanted to optimize multiple touchpoints in its patient journey, right from appointments to feedback.
Streamline the Appointment Booking Process
- Channels used before BestDoc: Calls, emails & front desk
- Cancelling and rescheduling bookings could get inefficient for patients
- High percentage of no-shows among advance appointments
Manually Managed Doctor Queues
- Queues were managed manually
- Patients could sometimes get restless not knowing when their turn is due or for how long they needed to wait
Make the Registration Process More Efficient
- Patients filling up forms manually could slow down registration
- Delays for patients due to putting handwritten information on a computer
- Process vulnerable to data entry errors by receptionists
Optimize the Feedback Collection Process
- The collection of feedback was people dependent
- Feedback about the front office staff, in particular, could be biased/inaccurate
due to a time lag between patients receiving services and giving feedback - Challenging to convert patient feedback into actionable insights
In March 2019, BMH chose BestDoc’s Patient Relationship Management solutions. As part of hospital onboarding, the first step for BestDoc was to integrate its PRM system with the hospital’s HMS.
A seamless integration between the two systems allows the PRM system to work as a communication layer on top of HMS, but available online and in real-time. This allows BestDoc PRM to provide a digitized and integrated care experience.
SOLUTIONS OFFERED
HOW BESTDOC HELPED BMH ENHANCE ITS PATIENT EXPERIENCE
BestDoc’s full suite of PRM solutions helped BMH deal with many of its improvement areas in patient experience, across bookings, check-ins, payments, and feedback.
Multiple Appointment Booking Options for Patients
Patients were given the flexibility of booking appointments through multiple channels — direct web bookings, BMH’s mobile app, over-the-counter (OTC) web bookings (facilitated by BMH front office), and kiosks. Web-based over-the-counter was the most widely used channel for bookings. The drop in no-shows in advance appointments helped create additional appointment slots
Faster, Digital Check-Ins
Patients were given three check-in options — web-based OTC, kiosks, and contactless. Web-based OTC and self-service kiosks were the most popular options for check-ins. Contactless check-ins saw maximum historical usage during the second wave of COVID-19, and adoption has been strong ever since. BMH has 6 self-service kiosks, which gives it a unique advantage over the competition.
Reallocation of Front Office Staff Towards Patient
Experience Activities
Our solutions helped BMH reduce the workload of the front office staff by 10-15%. BMH was able to redeploy these efficiencies towards patient experience activities, such as facility guidance and patient chaperoning.
Better Patient Experience in Queues
BMH wanted to enhance the experience of its patients while waiting in queues. BestDoc’s queue management solutions helped patients get clarity on when their turn is due, which helped them reduce their anxiety. Thousands of patients benefited from BestDoc’s QMS solutions.
Improved Patient Relationship
Management
BestDoc’s PRM solutions, including responsive interactive voice response (IVR) calls in patients’ preferred language, helped BMH streamline appointments. These include appointments made through BestDoc-enabled digital channels or through traditional channels such as front desk/call center. Patients benefited from BestDoc’s PRM solutions, spanning across appointments and consultations.
Ease of Collecting Payments
BestDoc’s payment solutions benefited both OP and IP patients of BMH. The administration could collect payments from patients through multiple channels — website, contactless check-ins, kiosks, and handheld POS devices. Multiple digital payment methods brought relief to patients while also reducing the workload of BMH staff
Better Utilization of Dialysis Beds
BestDoc helped BMH get a better understanding of the utilization of dialysis beds. This visibility helped the management optimize their investments in capital assets by preventing wasteful procurement of such beds.
Increased Patient Satisfaction and Ratings
With support from BestDoc and a focus on continuous improvement, BMH has increased its patient satisfaction. Also, the number of positive feedback has increased. Negative feedback has reduced and BMH’s Google review score has improved. Interestingly, the implied review score of BMH after adopting BestDoc’s solutions was 4.8 (based on the average of responses after implementing BestDoc’s solutions).
Streamlined Feedback Collection & Analysis
With BestDoc’s solutions, BMH could provide its patients multiple channels to share feedback — IVR, voice missed calls, a web link, and Whatsapp — in their local language. An intelligent and simple dashboard helped the hospital’s administration gain insights into what patients are saying. Notifications for negative feedback helped BMH address complaints quickly, and avoid reputational damage on social media.
BEFORE
AFTER
5-7 minutes
Time taken for registration+appointment+payment
2.5 minutes
5%
Negative feedback
3%
4.1
Google Review Score
4.4
40:60
Advance appointments vs walk-ins
60:40
SUMMARY
Baby Memorial Hospital wanted to make its patient experience journey even better with its dedication to providing “more than care” to patients. With deep domain expertise in the patient experience landscape, BestDoc was able to understand BMH’s unique requirements. BestDoc’s wide range of solutions helped BMH solve many of the challenges in its patient journey.
ABOUT BABY MEMORIAL HOSPITAL
Baby Memorial Hospital (BMH) is one of India’s finest multi-disciplinary, super-speciality hospital. Based in Kerala’s healthcare hub Kozhikode, BMH is the state’s largest private multi-specialty, tertiary care hospital.
600
Beds
300+
Doctors
24-hour
Accident & Emergency care
unit
11
Fully equipped ICUs
16
World-class operation
theatres
40+
Medical and Surgical
departments
