Date of Award

5-2023

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Education (EdD)

Department

Educational Leadership

First Advisor

Elizabeth Schurman

Second Advisor

David Van Heemst

Third Advisor

Jonathan Pickering

Scholarship Domain(s)

Scholarship of Discovery

Abstract

Providing a positive experience to patients at healthcare organizations is a complex undertaking and a continuous process due to staff turnover and the ever-changing industry. Positive patient experiences are an important part of the healing process as they relate to better outcomes in quality assessments. The purpose of this case study was to examine the nature of collaboration between clinical and marketing communications teams working to improve patient experience. To uncover lived experience, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 18 participants–nine clinicians and nine marketing communications professionals–from 10 organizations. The study sought to understand how marketing communications teams collaborated with clinicians, how they described barriers to collaboration, and what metrics they used to measure patient experience. Four themes related to the research questions arose: a lack of understanding of each other’s roles persists, a standard definition of patient experience has not yet been adopted, healthcare organizations seek third-party help in developing patient experience programs, and rewards, recognition, and ongoing education are the key ways healthcare organizations keep their staff focused on delivering care that will lead to positive patient experiences. Future research opportunities should include considering marketing communications role in patient experience programs from additional perspectives, especially executive leaders, whose influence is critical to promoting collaboration among team members.

Comments

Cohort 22

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 4.0 License.

Professional Biography

Dr. Megan O. Yore is a marketing communications professional who has served in leadership roles in the academic, healthcare, and financial services fields.

Download
COinS