To better support personalized care, Qualtrics patient experience data will be integrated with Epic to flag potential problems or concerns for patients.

WHY IT MATTERS

Qualtrics said in its announcement Tuesday that the new integration with Epic adds a layer of understanding about patient healthcare journeys to help create better patient experiences and provider relationships. 

If a patient reports scheduling frustrations, Qualtrics can flag it in Epic for the right team through the new integration.

"With deep experience across consumer industries, Qualtrics brings a broad perspective to healthcare," said Alan Hutchison, vice president at Epic, in a statement. "Together, our collaboration will help members of the Epic community exceed patients' evolving expectations."

Julie Spencer Washington, executive vice president and chief marketing, communications and customer experience officer at Livonia, Michigan-based Trinity Health, a health system operating in 27 states, added that the partnership between Epic and Qualtrics creates "empathy-driving action."

"To improve the patient experience and health outcomes, we need the full picture of every patient, including the emotions involved with each interaction," she said. "This partnership will allow healthcare providers to improve listening and deepen understanding with the intention of delivering a more holistic patient experience."

The partnership could also simplify and enhance regulatory surveys like the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services' Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems, explained Dr. Adrienne Boissy, Qualtrics' chief medical officer and staff neurologist at the Cleveland Clinic. 

"Events, like a patient being discharged from the hospital, will be immediately and more easily triggered to send the appropriate survey," she told Healthcare IT News.

THE LARGER TREND

Qualtrics has been able to leverage EHR data before.

Bon Secours Mercy Health uses Qualtrics to capture experience data in Qualtrics and combines it with behavior data from multiple human resources systems to get a unified view of the employee feedback.

"We knew there were areas of improvement when it came to the associate experience, but tactically, we didn’t know what areas were most important to them," Joe Filigno, vice president of HR strategy and associate experience at Bon Secours Mercy, told Healthcare IT News in September.

Filigno said the health system was thinking about how to make changes to its family leave program to enhance employee relationships. 

"Seeing the insights into benefits from Qualtrics provided us with sound data to recommend pivoting our program from two to eight weeks of family leave, which has been well-received across associates," he said.

ON THE RECORD

"This exciting integration between Qualtrics and Epic will drive more holistic, patient-centric care at scale," Craig Richardville, chief digital and information officer at Intermountain Health, said in a statement. "For an enriched patient experience and improved outcomes, healthcare providers must be empowered to understand and act on the entire patient experience, and this collaboration makes that possible."

This story was updated after publication to include additional comments from Dr. Adrienne Boissy, Qualtrics' chief medical officer.

Andrea Fox is senior editor of Healthcare IT News.
Email: afox@himss.org
Healthcare IT News is a HIMSS Media publication.