Testing of Patients First in a real-world setting, as a patient experience accreditation tool for hospitals and clinics

Many healthcare providers are developing patient experience strategies and investing in this area. Yet, patients have no means to know if a hospital is following proper patient experience standards. For this reason, it is important to certify that hospitals and clinics follow own a patient experience policy and apply patient experience standards. This is the reason why the accreditation Patients First was developed. The goal of this study is to test the accreditations’ feasibility in a real-life environment. The accreditation was tested at the Guadarrama Hospital, nearby Madrid in Spain. A mixed team between Guadarrama staff and the Institute for Patient Experience (IEXP) was set up in order to test each of the seven dimensions of the accreditation with a triple data gathering: documentation, participant observation, workshops with patients and also with staff. The certification has proven its utility to improve existing practices, as well as an instrument to set up new working lines in patient experience. The test also seems to prove that the certification’s methodology is robust form a conceptual and operative point of view. Further research is needed to measure direct impact on patients.