Improving the Patient Experience at Sexual & Reproductive Health Clinics
December 8th, 2022 | research
While all health care providers should strive to give patients a positive experience, the personal and sensitive nature of family planning services makes this even more important. When patients feel welcome and well cared for, they are more apt to return for the preventive and episodic health care services they need, reducing the likelihood of adverse health outcomes.
Staff from the JSI-managed Reproductive Health National Training Center (RHNTC) and the New York State Family Planning Training Center published a new article about their multifaceted training initiative to improve patient experience in New York State.
The NY State Family Planning Training Center team facilitated an 8-month patient experience training initiative with family planning clinics. Training participants examined how a clinic’s systems affect how quickly and easily a patient can make an appointment, how interactions between staff and patients engender trust, and to what extent the clinic environment is accessible. Systems, interactions, or environments that do not support a positive experience can prevent patients from accessing and receiving care. Participating clinics identified specific opportunities to improve their clinic and developed an improvement plan to track progress.
Lessons from the training initiative informed the Patient Experience Improvement Toolkit, developed by the RHNTC with support from the US Department of Health and Human Services Office of Population Affairs.
