A new report from Press Ganey reveals the value of capturing every patient’s voice in order to focus efforts on enhancing the quality and safety of care.

The report, "2013 Strategic Insights: Targeted Performance Improvement," identifies new thinking and analytical approaches organizations can adopt to efficiently and effectively enhance performance, according to a news release. Press Ganey, a patient experience improvement firm, works with more than 10,000 health care organizations, including 50 percent of all U.S. hospitals.

“In order to continue to advance the patient experience and perform at the highest levels clinically, leadership will require continuous innovation,” according to Patrick Ryan, CEO of Press Ganey. “A new framework is needed, and every patient must be given a voice. Sustainability will require operational integration of advanced analytics to drive targeted, day-to-day improvement.”

According to the report, optimizing the patient experience requires the following components:

• Redefining the patient experience
• Capturing every patient’s voice
• Deploying advanced analytics to drive targeted, operational performance improvement
• Creating a strong culture and engaged workforce

“While low satisfaction scores highlight areas that hospitals need to address, identifying the underlying factors contributing to those scores provides the specific roadmap for doing so,” according to Press Ganey’s news release. By collecting more data, organizations can use advanced analytics to gain powerful insights into how they are performing, identify issues proactively, and implement initiatives that will allow them to exceed performance expectations.

[See also: Doc urges new look at quality measures.]

Strategic Insights underscores that patients rate hospitals based on a complex perception of their care that is uniquely personal, requiring hospitals to develop a deep understanding of the patient’s journey, from beginning to end, in order to improve the patient experience and the quality of care.

“Organizations that have adopted this new approach of collecting more data have already seen substantial gains, including faster improvement cycles, greater clinician buy-in, and more effective and efficient improvement efforts,” said Ryan. “Ultimately, deeper data allows organizations the ability to understand the entire patient experience more precisely and with a more complete picture.”

Download the report here.