Measuring Patient Engagement and Satisfaction Outcomes in a Hospital or Health System

All of the work that we put into our organizations to improve the level of care and lives of our staff and our patients doesn’t mean anything if we can’t prove that it’s working. Patient engagement and satisfaction outcomes are the only true ways to know what to keep in your organization because it’s working, what needs some tweaking because it’s only sort of working but not to the level you need it to, and what to fully discard and try again because it’s not working at all. But how do you get these measurements?

We reached out to our wonderful Healthcare IT Today Community to ask just that — how do you measure patient engagement and satisfaction outcomes in a hospital or health system? Below are their answers.

DJ Tucker, Managing Director, Healthcare Informatics at Healthcare IT Leaders
Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HCAHPS) is the national benchmark for inpatient patient experience, while patient engagement is measured through tools like PAM, EHR-generated metrics, and vendor platforms. These are established metrics.

However, patient satisfaction and nurse satisfaction shouldn’t be measured in separate silos. They are the same program measured at different points in the care encounter. For example, ten minutes of nursing time saved per shift through automated documentation isn’t just a workflow win; it’s an HCAHPS outcome in the making.

The organizations winning on patient experience have figured out that clinician experience is the leading indicator, not a separate metric.

Kevin Hodder, Vice President of Patient Experience at Naples Comprehensive Health (NCH)
For today’s health systems, measuring patient engagement and satisfaction starts at the source. Collecting real-time patient feedback through nationally standardized consumer surveys provides contextual insights into patients’ perception of their care and overall experience, from pre-arrival through post-discharge. By leveraging qualitative commentary directly from patients, along with real-time engagement analytics captured through rounding tools, hospital leaders gain a valuable perspective into the full patient journey and can track opportunities to strengthen care delivery and continue exceeding expectations.

Eric Grunden, Chief Client Officer at Intelerad, A GE HealthCare Company
The operational metrics healthcare organizations typically use to measure success — system uptime, turnaround times, or service tickets — are important, but they don’t tell the full patient engagement story.

Health systems now look at a broader mix of signals to gauge how easily patients move through care journeys. Indicators like patient satisfaction surveys and Net Promoter Scores still matter, but the real experience comes down to workflow. How quickly are imaging results delivered, and can patients access and understand them easily? Does technology give providers immediate access to prior studies?

Technology that affects clinician workflows has a direct impact on patients. Imaging platforms that seamlessly integrate with hospital systems support radiologists and referring physicians, enabling them to share results faster and communicate more effectively. That operational strength also supports patient engagement. Interoperable systems that facilitate cross-team coordination help providers enhance care and service delivery, which increases satisfaction.

The technology supporting care should essentially be invisible — when it’s reliable, connected, and working quietly in the background, providers can focus on patients.

Beth Godsey, General Manager of Insights at Tendo
Patient engagement is often measured through surveys, but those only capture a small part of the experience. Today, health systems are combining traditional patient experience measures with operational and clinical data to understand how patients actually move through the system. By connecting data across scheduling, access, care delivery, and outcomes, organizations can identify where patients encounter friction in their care journey. That broader view allows health systems to move beyond measuring satisfaction after the fact and instead focus on improving the processes that shape the patient experience in the first place.

Donovan Campbell, CEO at Medbridge
Hospital and health systems that want to meaningfully measure patient engagement and satisfaction outcomes are increasingly turning to system-wide, EHR-integrated platforms that collect relevant patient information anywhere they are, whether it’s inside a facility or at home. These platforms enable hospitals and health systems to align with CMS TEAM, Access, and other regulatory and reimbursement requirements while also helping make care more effective and cost-efficient.

Increasingly, hospitals and health systems are implementing platforms that do more than simply collect outcomes; they improve them as well by integrating best-in-class home care and patient education programs into the outcomes collection tools themselves. By feeding data on which programs lead to the best patient outcomes, this approach has an additional benefit: delivering clinicians the information they need to best tailor care to each patient.

Niki Panich, MD, Chief Medical Officer at Penguin Ai
Satisfaction scores should not be the primary metric. A patient can feel satisfied with a smooth experience and still have a preventable readmission. True engagement means patients understand their diagnosis, follow through on care plans, and feel heard by their care team. I look at portal activation, care plan adherence, and whether patients are showing up for follow-up, because those behaviors speak louder than survey answers.

Dr. Scott Schell, Chief Medical Officer at Cognizant
While traditional experience surveys remain important, organizations increasingly supplement them with operational metrics such as portal utilization, digital scheduling adoption, response times to patient portal messages, and adherence to remote monitoring programs. The most meaningful measures link engagement directly to improved outcomes, showing that better communication and access translate into better health and more efficient care delivery.

Such great insights here! Huge thank you to everyone who took the time out of their day to submit a quote to us! And thank you to all of you for taking the time out of your day to read this article! We could not do this without all of your support.

How do you measure patient engagement and satisfaction outcomes in a hospital or health system? Let us know over on social media, we’d love to hear from all of you!

All of the work that we put into our organizations to improve the level of care and lives of our staff and our patients doesn’t mean anything if we can’t prove that it’s working. Patient engagement and satisfaction outcomes are the only true ways to know what to keep in your organization because it’s working, what needs some tweaking because it’s only sort of working but not to the level you need it to, and what to fully discard and try again because it’s not working at all. But how do you get these measurements?

We reached out to our wonderful Healthcare IT Today Community to ask just that — how do you measure patient engagement and satisfaction outcomes in a hospital or health system? Below are their answers.

DJ Tucker, Managing Director, Healthcare Informatics at Healthcare IT Leaders
Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HCAHPS) is the national benchmark for inpatient patient experience, while patient engagement is measured through tools like PAM, EHR-generated metrics, and vendor platforms. These are established metrics.

However, patient satisfaction and nurse satisfaction shouldn’t be measured in separate silos. They are the same program measured at different points in the care encounter. For example, ten minutes of nursing time saved per shift through automated documentation isn’t just a workflow win; it’s an HCAHPS outcome in the making.

The organizations winning on patient experience have figured out that clinician experience is the leading indicator, not a separate metric.

Kevin Hodder, Vice President of Patient Experience at Naples Comprehensive Health (NCH)
For today’s health systems, measuring patient engagement and satisfaction starts at the source. Collecting real-time patient feedback through nationally standardized consumer surveys provides contextual insights into patients’ perception of their care and overall experience, from pre-arrival through post-discharge. By leveraging qualitative commentary directly from patients, along with real-time engagement analytics captured through rounding tools, hospital leaders gain a valuable perspective into the full patient journey and can track opportunities to strengthen care delivery and continue exceeding expectations.

Eric Grunden, Chief Client Officer at Intelerad, A GE HealthCare Company
The operational metrics healthcare organizations typically use to measure success — system uptime, turnaround times, or service tickets — are important, but they don’t tell the full patient engagement story.

Health systems now look at a broader mix of signals to gauge how easily patients move through care journeys. Indicators like patient satisfaction surveys and Net Promoter Scores still matter, but the real experience comes down to workflow. How quickly are imaging results delivered, and can patients access and understand them easily? Does technology give providers immediate access to prior studies?

Technology that affects clinician workflows has a direct impact on patients. Imaging platforms that seamlessly integrate with hospital systems support radiologists and referring physicians, enabling them to share results faster and communicate more effectively. That operational strength also supports patient engagement. Interoperable systems that facilitate cross-team coordination help providers enhance care and service delivery, which increases satisfaction.

The technology supporting care should essentially be invisible — when it’s reliable, connected, and working quietly in the background, providers can focus on patients.

Beth Godsey, General Manager of Insights at Tendo
Patient engagement is often measured through surveys, but those only capture a small part of the experience. Today, health systems are combining traditional patient experience measures with operational and clinical data to understand how patients actually move through the system. By connecting data across scheduling, access, care delivery, and outcomes, organizations can identify where patients encounter friction in their care journey. That broader view allows health systems to move beyond measuring satisfaction after the fact and instead focus on improving the processes that shape the patient experience in the first place.

Donovan Campbell, CEO at Medbridge
Hospital and health systems that want to meaningfully measure patient engagement and satisfaction outcomes are increasingly turning to system-wide, EHR-integrated platforms that collect relevant patient information anywhere they are, whether it’s inside a facility or at home. These platforms enable hospitals and health systems to align with CMS TEAM, Access, and other regulatory and reimbursement requirements while also helping make care more effective and cost-efficient.

Increasingly, hospitals and health systems are implementing platforms that do more than simply collect outcomes; they improve them as well by integrating best-in-class home care and patient education programs into the outcomes collection tools themselves. By feeding data on which programs lead to the best patient outcomes, this approach has an additional benefit: delivering clinicians the information they need to best tailor care to each patient.

Niki Panich, MD, Chief Medical Officer at Penguin Ai
Satisfaction scores should not be the primary metric. A patient can feel satisfied with a smooth experience and still have a preventable readmission. True engagement means patients understand their diagnosis, follow through on care plans, and feel heard by their care team. I look at portal activation, care plan adherence, and whether patients are showing up for follow-up, because those behaviors speak louder than survey answers.

Dr. Scott Schell, Chief Medical Officer at Cognizant
While traditional experience surveys remain important, organizations increasingly supplement them with operational metrics such as portal utilization, digital scheduling adoption, response times to patient portal messages, and adherence to remote monitoring programs. The most meaningful measures link engagement directly to improved outcomes, showing that better communication and access translate into better health and more efficient care delivery.

Such great insights here! Huge thank you to everyone who took the time out of their day to submit a quote to us! And thank you to all of you for taking the time out of your day to read this article! We could not do this without all of your support.

How do you measure patient engagement and satisfaction outcomes in a hospital or health system? Let us know over on social media, we’d love to hear from all of you!