U.S. News & World Report recently released its 2019-2020 Best Hospitals ratings. The annual rankings are designed to help patients and doctors make informed decisions about where to seek care.

Major changes in the methodology this year include the addition of patient experience data. Positive patient experience is a crucial element of maximizing patient-centered quality, and it has been shown to correlate with better outcomes.

Simply put, hospitals with the best patient experience report better financial performance and higher clinical quality. These hospitals realize that the patient experience starts in the home, before a patient is admitted, and continues long after discharge. They connect with patients and monitor their progress throughout their entire healthcare journey, outside the four walls of the hospital in patients’ everyday lives.

The Women’s Health Services team at Hartford Hospital is committed to providing a top-notch experience to our expecting parents and families with new babies. We believe that education is critical to this goal because it gives our patients the information they need to become confident and empowered parents.

Not only does solid education mean better outcomes for our patients, research shows it also leads to higher levels of satisfaction. And that’s good for business, as well. Under managed care, satisfaction has a real and important impact on reimbursement. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) rewards hospitals with incentive payments or penalizes them with reduced reimbursements, based on HCAHPS performance scores.

New mothers have been described as the Chief Medical Officers of their families, making 80% of the healthcare decisions. We want to strengthen our bonds with new moms and give them the education they need to make informed decisions for themselves and their families. Plus, a more satisfied new mom is more likely to recommend Hartford Hospital to a friend and come back for another pregnancy or for future healthcare needs.

When patients leave the four walls of the hospital or their doctor’s office, they stop being “patients”, and go back to being people managing the details of their daily lives. Patients manage their care on their own most of the time, and the decisions they make impact outcomes and cost.

That’s where digital patient education comes in.

Our infographic shows how digital patient education bridges the gap between time as a patient and everyday life.

Measuring the impact of a digital education program and the benefits of patient engagement can be challenging. Statistics such as open and click-through rates indicate how patients are interacting with digital messaging and help prove the value of a patient engagement solution. But how do you know whether your patients take actions based on what they’re learning from those messages?

Ongoing patient-reported feedback and data about digital interactions provide a deeper understanding of where your patients are on their care journey—and what they need.