About the Organization
The mission of the Healthcare Hospitality Network (HHN) is to support healthcare hospitality houses to be more effective in their service to patients and families.
The Opportunity
The healthcare hospitality industry relies heavily on support from healthcare systems whose primary driver of success metrics is patient outcomes. While they had an abundance of qualitative data on the importance of healthcare hospitality on patient outcomes, they did not have quantitative data. Creating the industry’s first and only National Hospitality Impact Report provided its members with the critical data they needed to communicate their role in the patient outcome spectrum to their primary donors. After several years of decreasing membership due to individual house budgets decreasing, the Nonprofit Resources Team worked with HHN to focus on providing this important information to their members.
Our Approach
HHN has developed a comprehensive background in survey tool creation as well as management. We worked with a member house that was already using a survey tool to measure their house’s impact on patient outcomes. The information that the tool provided indicated that revisions to the survey tool would greatly enhance the data that was needed to make impactful decisions.
The Nonprofit Resources Team, led by Brittany Quinn, Account Executive, steered a National Hospitality Impact Committee, with an emphasis on representing the full spectrum of members in HHN (large and small organizations, independent owners, healthcare systems solely owned and operated, and different patient populations including guests served). The committee met and created a pilot survey program for their guests who are the primary recipients of the HHN services.
This pilot survey led to a reduction in the number of questions in the original survey tool used by HHN participating houses. This reduction will improve patient and caregiver participation and focus on the key drivers of patient outcomes.
Our primary third-party partners were hospitality health educators from Oklahoma State University’s research and evaluation program and the hospitality program. They were critical in preparing our survey tool for Institutional Review Boards (IRB) approval that would certify the results of the survey.
Once the pilot program concluded, we updated the survey tool and distributed it to members throughout the network. Work on the survey tool required the Nonprofit Resources team, who have years of providing nonprofit management services, to become intimately familiar with SurveyMonkey’s capabilities and required several advanced functions that HHN members would not have been able to create independently.
Nonprofit Resources staff distributed and educated the HHN members on how to administer the survey. Over 2,200 guest surveys were collected representing 26 HHN houses nationally. Our partners at Oklahoma State University were responsible for collecting and validating the data. Our team worked to create several materials to help market and distribute the final report, including graphic design tutorials, training webinars with grant writers, brochures, samples, and step-by-step videos.
The Nonprofit Resources Team also created a fee structure that generated essential non-dues revenue, as well as recruited additional members to increase membership numbers and generate new dues revenue for HHN.
The Results
- Generated $1,000 in program revenue
- Gained new members to solely access the report
- Increased exposure to new audiences
- Increased website traffic
- Helped 20% of patients traveling for medical care and to avoid foreclosure on their homes
HHN now provides the only survey that captures a variety of industry statistics and services that HHN members rely on such as data on guests served, occupancy trends, salaries, and benefits information.
“This is exactly what we have needed to demonstrate the important role healthcare hospitality houses play in patient outcomes. This is not something that we could have done individually without HHN’s leadership.” Nora’s Home, Houston TX
Conclusion
Identifying our client’s key role was essential – HHN was in a unique position to gather industry data that would relate the importance and impact of the healthcare hospitality industry in patient care and outcomes through this tool. This is a tool that does not exist anywhere else. Finding the right partners was also critical – and while it took more time, they provided the outside knowledge needed to validate the report’s findings. This can be replicated for other Nonprofit Resources clients. Knowledge of survey tool creation and receiving IRB approval means that Nonprofit Resources can assist clients in developing their own industry reports.