Patient experience linked to incentive compensation

In our 2015 Salary Survey, 55 percent of respondents said their incentive compensation is tied to performance improvement metrics, such as patient satisfaction, quality of care and health care-associated infection rates.

This percentage underscores something Health Facilities Management readers have known for quite some time — facility managers aren't there just to make sure the lights stay on, and environmental services (ES) leaders aren't just disposing of waste. Instead, these seemingly simple tasks and how they are performed have a big influence on patients' perceptions.

For instance, the American Society for Healthcare Engineering published a new monograph titled "HCAHPS Scores, the Patient Experience, and the Affordable Care Act from the Facility Perspective." It explains how facility managers should approach health care's changing landscape. Also, a recent HFM article, "Motivating environmental services staff," addresses the role ES personnel play in patient satisfaction.

Today's health care CEOs are grasping the influence the built environment and how it is managed have on the patient experience, and many are recruiting and rewarding facility and ES managers as part of the effort to increase satisfaction, not only for patients, but also for staff and physicians.

For more insight, take a look at the top seven performance initiatives linked to financial incentives from our survey.