Patient Relationship Management Method, an Approach toward Patient Satisfaction: A Case Study in a Public Hospital

Introduction: The aim of this project is to investigate the concepts of patient relationship management (PRM), patient satisfaction and their relationship. As healthcare industry has its own complexity, the so well defined idea in marketing which is CRM could not be implemented directly in health industry. Consequently the concept of PRM has been introduced.

Methods: Qualitative research has been executed over the recently developed methods. The main indices of patient satisfaction based on new findings have been discussed. Besides PRM method has been investigated. Finally via data mining on questionnaire that we have gained on a public hospital in Tehran we analyzed the case and based on the data we recommended a PRM solution to tackle the problems.

Results: While CRM is the best practice for marketing segmentation, increasing customer satisfaction and avoiding customer retention, in the health industry PRM is the main template to improve patient satisfaction and consequently avoiding patient churn. It has been found CRM with the profit maximization motto could not be used directly in health industry. Instead, PRM with the main objective of using the patient data effectively for prediction of disease trend over time, classification of the type of disease and using follow up system could improve the quality of care that is provided for the patient. As a result this would directly lead to increased patient satisfaction and best retention strategy for health industry. In the case study we found that the main problems arise from the lack of efficient communication between medical staff and patients. A system of PRM to tackle this problem is provided.

Conclusion: PRM, Service quality and Patient satisfaction are inter related concepts. With the help of PRM it is possible to avoid the outbreak of new disease, improve the service quality and saving the time in process of care services which they result in increased patient satisfaction. Data mining on patient satisfaction questionnaire is an efficient way to find the main problem and obstacles in front of patient satisfaction. Via PRM method we can find a solution to alleviate the situation and increase patient satisfaction.