Patient centricity lies at the heart of Life Healthcare’s vision of making life better.

Patient centricity lies at the heart of Life Healthcare’s vision of making life better.  

Since 2005 we have been conducting internal research to measure patient experience within our hospitals across a range of metrics. Patient feedback is captured at multiple touch points along our patient’s journey through the hospital and the results provide clear, transparent, unbiased information from members from all medical schemes.

The real time results are publicly available here.

These scores provide valuable insights into the quality of patients’ stay at our hospitals. The measurements cover the:

• level of care received;
• rehabilitation process;
• level of service experienced;
• quality of equipment and facilities;
• how quickly employees responded to requests; and
• the quality of information provided.

The insights gained are used to create an environment that is conducive to healing and recovery.  

A range of programmes is also in place to support Life Healthcare’s commitment to deliver patient care and clinical outcomes of exceptional quality. These include:  

• Life Healthcare’s CARE Programme, which focuses on interacting with patients in a thoughtful, considerate and compassionate manner;
• Enhanced infection control and prevention programmes;
• Infection Prevention and Control;
• Antimicrobial Stewardship;
• Life Healthcare BetterObs programme which focuses on obstetrics;
• Cardiac Excellence; and
• The Q.U.I.E.T. initiative which focuses on reducing noise levels in our hospitals.

Patient perceptions of quality are critical to elevating the Group’s standards of care which are not only measurements of performance, but also of the Group’s commitment to continuous improvement across all aspects patient centricity.

We are therefore proud to announce that no less than eight of our hospitals are ranked among the top 20 hospitals that achieved the highest scores in the Discovery Health Patient Experience Survey (PaSS) scores during 2017.

These eight hospitals account for 40% of Discovery Health’s top 20 scoring hospitals in South Africa – an outstanding achievement given that Life Healthcare accounts for 25% of the total private hospital coverage in the country. 

The results of the Discovery Health survey are a valuable source of independent information which substantiates the outcomes of the quantitative and qualitative research conducted within our own hospitals.