With the anticipation of Medicare preparing to decrease financial reimbursement for hospitals with low patient satisfaction scores, the pressure is on for healthcare facilities to provide physician services that result in patient satisfaction.

“Kaiser Health News” reported that “with Medicare basing hospital payments on patient-satisfaction scores, extra funds will be distributed among ones with above-average scores.”

More and more healthcare experts, including those representing hospitals utilizing physician outsourcing services as well as healthcare facilities that place hospital physicians themselves, confirm that in order for hospitals to increase patient satisfaction, technology is key.

“Developments in health information technology provide unique ways for hospitals to increase patient satisfaction, by streamlining work processes, improving efficiencies, and holding down costs. Smart technology, for example, has an additive effect on realized benefits through improved patient-tracking mechanisms, smart medication pumps, and smart patient rooms,” as reported in “South Florida Hospital News.”

Hospital emergency departments, for example, are often scrutinized by patients who experience long waits – the time it takes to get from waiting rooms to inpatient rooms or from inpatient rooms to diagnostic testing rooms. Patient tracking is an incredibly helpful patient care tool that enables hospitals to examine the amount of time that passes between a patient pressing a call light and the time it takes for a physician service provider to respond.

The bottom line is this: there will be greater emphasis on the degree in which hospitals monitor their employees; after all it’s the hospital physician who makes a direct impact on the patient.