The truth about patient experience: what we can learn from other industries, and how three ps can improve health outcomes, strengthen brands, and delight customers.

Improving the patient experience is an issue many healthcare organizations face. However, it is the opinion of this author that the focus on patient satisfaction scores alone is short-sighted and that the most successful organizations will adopt best practices from other industries to deliver a more complete patient experience. This article presents an extensive review of best practices in customer experience from numerous customer-centric industries and postulates as to how the healthcare field might apply them. A new framework for improving patient experience is proposed--one that moves beyond the traditional focus on satisfaction scores to embrace the core differentiating characteristics of the organization.