The CareVoice is leading a unique initiative to create a set of high quality data about fast growing, international standards healthcare services and to educate consumers about the most qualified, patient-centric options in the China healthcare market.
SHANGHAI, CHINA – April 26, 2017 – The CareVoice today announced the launch of its 2017 Consumer Centered Hospital Initiative, which aims to engage hospitals in leveraging direct patient feedback to ensure delivery of high quality, patient-centric healthcare experiences in China.
The CareVoice operates in the Chinese healthcare system which is currently undergoing rapid changes for privatization of healthcare with now nearly 50% of total hospitals in China being private against around only 25% a few years ago. There is a growing number of consumers visiting high-end, international-standard hospitals and clinics in seek of privacy, convenience and excellent services. At the same time, these high-end hospitals monitor the current market change and enhance their efforts to attract this rapidly growing consumer base.
Indeed, despite this rapidly growing trend, there are still less than 10% of total patients visiting these private hospitals in China. The reason for this trend is due to Chinese consumers’ lack of confidence in healthcare services, and their continued need for trustable and transparent information.
The CareVoice 2017 Consumer Centered Hospital Initiative aims to tackle this issue head on. It is the first highly innovative approach in the China healthcare market that utilizes direct input from patients to improve overall quality of healthcare. It is also a further evolution of The CareVoice’s 2016 Call on Healthcare Transparency, which generated public awareness and many comments regarding consumers’ needs for better healthcare.
“Imagine how health care related behaviors will change if we enable transparency within the cost and quality of patient-centric healthcare. That’s our vision at The CareVoice,” said Jan Velich, Chief Business Officer and Co-founder at The CareVoice.
The core of this initiative is a survey platform to collect patients’ experience feedbacks visiting hospitals. Survey questions are inspired by US HCAHPS (Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems) and adjusted by Chinese healthcare key opinion leaders to tailor the survey to China specificities. Furthermore, the feedback is generated through a mobile web-based survey, which only requires two minutes to finish.
Every month, The CareVoice team and experts analyzes the survey results and provides electronic reports to each participating hospital so they can easily measure their progress and patient satisfaction. These results are benchmarked across participating hospitals in China and internationally, through partnerships with leading international organizations such as Matilda International Hospital in Hong Kong.
Doctors at leading hospitals in China have seen an increasing need for active feedback from their patients. “We need a fair, transparent, and scientific evaluating system to objectively rank the performances of our medical center and our physicians. It will not only improve our service quality and safety, but also let more potential patients better understand our medical center without prejudice,” said Dr. Thomas Cao, Deputy President and Cardiovascular Surgeon at Shanghai’s Quyang Hospital VIP Medical Center.
Moreover, the generated survey results are shared with DNV-GL (a global institution that provides quality driven accreditations and clinical excellence certifications to hospitals worldwide) for reference checks every quarter to evaluate and contribute to issue a Patient Centric Certification for the best performing hospitals.
“DNV-GL has been deepening its presence in China through three aspects: clinical, safety and management process. The CareVoice’s Patient Experience Surveys are going to help us better understand hospital’s overall management system from patient-centric point of view”, said Huijie Bo, general manager of Greater China at DNV-GL.
With current pipeline of nearly 40 private hospitals, clinics and VIP medical centers in Shanghai and Beijing, The CareVoice provides the patient-centric evaluation system free of charge. The ultimate goals are to help Chinese consumers to better understand the value of private healthcare options, and to support Chinese Government in its efforts to develop a strong private healthcare market.
“I am glad that The CareVoice started the 2017 Consumer Centered Hospital Initiative. I believe that this innovative initiative will be a great benefit for consumers to receive the best patientfocused, quality and cost efficient healthcare experience in China. It is also a privilege for Ferguson Women’s Health to be one of the first participating hospitals/clinics in this initiative,” said Dr. Michelle Lu-Ferguson, President and Chief Medical Officer at Ferguson Women’s Health.
The CareVoice is a Chinaccelerator Batch 10 company. Click here for a Chinese version of the press release.
The CareVoice is a Shanghai-based health insurtech startup driven by the mission to bring better healthcare experience to its members. At the core of the company mission is an independent mobile social platform that provides trusted, community-sourced ratings and recommendations on top-quality healthcare services in China. The CareVoice provides insurers and employers with a SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) membership services solution integrated with its ratings/recommendations platform to guide independently their members and employees to high quality and cost effective medical providers and keep them healthy.
Media contact
Sebastien Gaudin, CEO & Co-Founder sebastien.gaudin@thecarevoice.com
Nicol Meng, Senior Marketing Manager nicol.meng@thecarevoice.com
