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Abstract
INTRODUCTION: Quality improvement efforts in healthcare have typically focused on reducing costs, decreasing wait time, or increasing regulatory compliance [1]. Recent emphasis on patient-centered care, coupled with increasing competition among larger consolidated health systems to acquire new patients, provide the impetus to assess and enhance current patients' experience. Patient journey mapping (PJM) is a relatively novel method to evaluate the patient experience during or following the caregiving episodes.
OBJECTIVE: This article reviews various research papers on the patient journey mapping process, their methodologies, and outcomes achieved for patients, providers, and the health system.
METHODOLOGY: We used Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines to synthesize current knowledge of patient journey mapping using keywords related to PJM and patient experience. We reviewed selected articles in detail on the purpose of the manuscript, tools and methods, and their outcomes.
RESULTS: We summarized the characteristics of the reviewed paper, the development of PJM tools, and PJM's applications in various healthcare settings.
CONCLUSION: Patient journey mapping supports the advancement of patient experience measurement techniques. This review enables hospitals to introduce process improvement protocols that prioritize patient experience, cost, and efficiency. Enhancing patients' experiences improve care quality, health outcomes, resource utilization, and treatment adherence.
Keywords
Patient Journey Mapping, Patient Experience, Patient-centered Care, Healthcare Process Improvement
1.Introduction
Patient-centered care is one of the six aims of healthcare identified in the framework developed by the Institute of Medicine [1]. However, quality improvement (QI) efforts in healthcare have typically focused on reducing costs, decreasing wait time, or increasing compliance [2]. Recent emphasis on patient-centered care, coupled with increasing competition among larger consolidated health systems provide the impetus to enhance current patients' experience, improve care transitions, and acquire new patients. One relatively novel method for examining and improving patient-centered care is journey mapping. Patient journey mapping (PJM) evaluates the patient experience at different "hotspots" during the caregiving experience. These hotspots represent various points within the patient journey, such as registration, during transport, and admission to a hospital service and include contact with many staff, including physicians, nurses, dieticians, pharmacists, social workers, and environmental services.
PJM supports our understanding of patients' experience as they move through the health system deconstructing their treatment into a set of discrete events that provide...