*The translation of this article in French and Portuguese has been made through machine translation and has not been edited yet. we apologise for any inaccuracies.
Market research in healthcare is an important component when looking to improve patient experience, patient outcomes, and their overall satisfaction with their treatment. Both local, and global healthcare market research help service and product providers to make informed and actionable decisions to upgrade healthcare provision.
It’s easy to forget that at some point, we´re all patients. And when we´re unwell, we want to feel reassured that the healthcare system can provide us with the care we need to recover. When people, physicians, and healthcare providers share their opinions and experiences through market research in healthcare they help bring important insights into how to better develop and improve healthcare delivery. The goal is to have every single patient feeling satisfied with the care that is given to them.
So how exactly does market research in healthcare help improve patient outcomes and patient experience? Market research is designed to build understanding of the target audience’s desires, beliefs, values, and behaviours to gain insight into their core needs. Insights are then analysed to identify any gaps in what is currently being provided to them, versus what they want and need to feel satisfied. Here´s how healthcare market research impacts patient care, and how you can help influence the future of healthcare.
How Does Market Research in Healthcare Improve Patient Outcomes?
Patient outcomes are driven by the care and treatments patients receive whilst in hospital or in other clinical settings. As such, it is directly impacted by the people who deliver the care and the tools (information, medications, therapies options, devices, technologies, etc.) that are available to them to adequately deliver the service and care that is required.
A large portion of healthcare market research is aimed specifically at physicians, as they play the biggest role in a patient’s journey from consultation, investigation, and diagnosis to treatment and rehabilitation. Throughout this journey, physicians gather feedback from patients on multiple occasions, and deploy their own personal experience of how well certain therapies, devices, and technologies work – both from the patient side, and from the provider side. Coupled with physicians’ medical knowledge, the insights that are shared in market research studies for healthcare are crucial to further developing products and services to improve patient outcomes.
Clinical trials are complex, lengthy, expensive, and often involve fewer participants than healthcare market research. Once a new drug or treatment has been determined to be safe and effective, market research needs to be done to understand the perception of products, how they are utilized, and how they affect patients in real-life situations. When feedback is collected, the service and product providers can start adjusting, optimising, and further developing healthcare products which gives physicians better tools to care for their patients. With better tools and better care, patient outcomes can improve.
As a physician, you have the opportunity to impact patient outcomes and help shape the future of healthcare by participating in market research in healthcare. Research studies for physicians are well compensated and focus on gathering unbiased opinions about new treatments and other healthcare topics. Learn more about paid healthcare market research and how to become a member for our global physician panel here. Connect with us on LinkedIn for more updates.
How Does Market Research in Healthcare Improve Patient Experience?
Patient experience is assessed through various interactions that patients have with the healthcare system at large and includes several aspects of healthcare delivery such as getting timely appointments, easy access to information, quality of care, and good communication with healthcare providers. Everything from how well a patient is treated by receptionists, nurses, and other hospital staff, to how comfortable they feel in the healthcare facility itself, really matters.
Market research in healthcare is conducted using many different research methodologies (online surveys, individual interviews, focus groups, among others) and allows researchers to deep dive into specific focus areas of healthcare on multiple levels. As mentioned earlier, it is vital to understand the core needs and perceptions of everyone involved in delivering patient care when conducting healthcare market research. Although it is crucial to get feedback from both the patient and their physician to understand how to create a positive patient experience, it is equally important to understand the motivations and challenges of delivering quality patient care from other healthcare professionals as well. Healthcare market research that aims to understand the needs and opinions of nurses, physician assistants, administrators, hospital managers, and other hospital staff is essential to help identify the gaps and barriers to facilitate a positive patient experience.
Healthcare professionals who work directly or indirectly with patients have a comprehensive understanding of how the healthcare system operates and how to best work with people, products, systems, and services to enhance the patient experience. Make a difference and improve patient experience whilst earning extra income by participating in market research for healthcare professionals. Register with our global panel to access paid market research studies in healthcare that are tailored to your profession and personal experience. For regular updates, follow us on Instagram.
Can Market Research In Healthcare Improve Patient Satisfaction?
Patient satisfaction measures a patient’s expectations about a health encounter and if their expectations were met, through a scoring system. The measurement is very subjective and doesn’t always correlate with patient outcomes, since a patient can have a good patient experience but simultaneously experience poor treatment outcomes. Some of the key indicators of patient satisfaction in healthcare are:
- Communication with doctors
- Communication with nurses
- Responsiveness of hospital staff
- Pain management
- Communication about medicines
- Discharge information
- Cleanliness of the hospital environment
- Quietness of the hospital environment
- Transitions in care
Patient satisfaction surveys are a type of market research which aim to understand many different aspects of a patient’s journey to identify the gaps between how they perceive healthcare should be delivered versus how it was actually delivered. In doing so, healthcare organisations can work on improving their services or better educate patients where there are knowledge gaps or unreasonable expectations.
Qualitative market research in healthcare for patients and the general public is more in-depth and focuses on specific areas, such as use of medications or medical devices, new treatment options, how they experience certain services, or what their opinions are about different therapeutic areas. As such, healthcare market research impacts patient satisfaction indirectly, as the gathered feedback is used to implement better services, and more effective and user-friendly products.
To gather insights from those who use healthcare services and products is a key factor in developing all aspects of healthcare. Whilst the patient satisfaction score shows how satisfied patients feel, healthcare market research offers additional understanding into why they feel this way. In combination with healthcare market insights from physicians and other healthcare providers, life science organisations are able to explore innovative new healthcare solutions. If you want to make a difference by sharing your opinions and experience in healthcare, sign up as an M3 member here.
Learn more about market research in healthcare and get the latest M3 updates, by following us on LinkedIn or Instagram. You may also want to continue reading about how to earn extra income in healthcare by visiting the M3 Recommends section.
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1 comments
Indeed, so is the reality