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Patient Experience

Patient Experience and Service Excellence

Design and deliver more person-centred, compassionate and responsive care

The Course Course Content Next Session

About the course

There is growing evidence that better patient experiences lead to measurably better health outcomes, enhanced patient safety and improved revenues. So today, more than ever, we must build healthcare services around the needs of patients and their families.

IHLM’s popular course on Patient Experience and Service Excellence is for progressive healthcare providers and professionals who want to design and deliver more person-centred, compassionate and responsive care.

The course has been developed by IHLM faculty in collaboration with leading patient experience experts and carefully benchmarked against the Picker Institute’s Principles of Person-Centred Care, the Beryl Institute’s Patient Experience Body of Knowledge and the Planetree Person-Centred Care Certification Criteria. It will provide you with a comprehensive understanding of this entire area of healthcare management and prepare you for future professional opportunities in the field.

Delivered via IHLM’s online learning platform and through live interactive virtual tutorials you will become part of a global community learning how to transform patient experience together.

What you’ll learn

On completion of this course you’ll be able to:

  • understand what person-centred care is and set-up the systems, processes and resources needed to deliver it
  • educate and support healthcare staff to become more compassionate and engaged caregivers
  • collaborate with patients and caregivers to co-design more person-centred services and smoother patient journeys
  • create effective systems for collecting patient experience data and acting on improvement opportunities
  • evaluate and improve the emotional, clinical, functional, physical and digital dimensions of patient experience

How you’ll learn

This course is broken down into eight manageable weekly modules:

  • work at your own speed through a carefully curated collection of self-paced online learning materials that include video lectures, podcasts, interviews and real-world case studies
  • evidence-based research from peer-reviewed publications will help you dig more deeply into topics that really interest you
  • you are not alone – you will interact with other course members, collaborate on learning activities and get direct feedback and coaching from the course leader during weekly virtual tutorials
  • earn professional certification by completing weekly learning activities and mini-projects

This course should take approximately 4 – 6 hours per week.  You can expect to devote about 1 – 2 hours per week to self-paced learning, 1 – 2 hours per week preparing for and participating in the webinar and 1 – 2 hours per week applying your knowledge through learning activities and mini-projects.  Every webinar is recorded so you can rewatch it at any time.

Who should take this course?

This course will benefit all healthcare professionals who have an interest in person-centered care – including doctors, nurses, allied healthcare professionals and staff in administrative or managerial roles. It is an ideal course for established patient experience leaders who want to update and expand their knowledge and is also very suitable for staff who are aspiring to, or preparing for, future patient experience or service excellence roles.

About the certificates

Upon successful completion of the course you’ll receive an:

  • IHLM Certificate of CPD Completion – This may be useful for course members who belong to professional bodies that have Continuing Professional Development requirements.  The course has an estimated 60 hours of guided learning.
  • IHLM Professional Certificate in Patient Experience and Service Excellence – This is evidence of the advanced patient experience capabilities you’ve developed during the course.  The award of a professional certificate requires completion of learning activities and mini-projects during each module.

How to register

Ready to start?  Just click the ‘Register now’ button at the top of this page or use the ‘Ask us a question’ button if you’d like to talk to one of our course facilitators.  The fee for this course is £995 per person.  If you’d like to pay in instalments you can arrange this by contacting us at: [email protected].

All registrations are subject to our terms and conditions which are available here. By registering for an IHLM course you are accepting these terms and conditions and agreeing to be bound by them.

 

Module 1: What Is Person-Centred Care?

Gain an overview of the core concepts of patient experience and service excellence:

  • how and why patients differ from other types of consumer
  • why the attitudes and expectations of today’s patients are changing
  • the role and importance of patient experience in healthcare quality
  • what is person-centred care and how is it delivered?

Module 2: Leadership, Governance and Engagement

Review the systems, structures and processes needed to develop and sustain person-centred care:

  • the difficulties and challenges that leaders face in improving patient experience
  • how healthcare providers build the foundations for excellence
  • how to establish a patient experience office and team
  • how to help caregivers develop more person-centred practices and behaviours

Module 3: Using Design Thinking to Improve Patient Experience

Discover how design thinking can transform patient experience:

  • what design thinking is and how it differs from other improvement methods
  • what happens during each phase of the design thinking process
  • qualitative techniques for observing and understanding patient experience
  • using design thinking to generate solutions to patient experience issues

Module 4: Using the ‘Model for Improvement’ to Improve Experience

Use a scientific, evidence-based method to collect patient experience data and identity improvement opportunities:

  • the purpose and value of patient experience data
  • using the right metrics and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) 
  • quantitative techniques for measuring and analysing patient experience
  • using data to develop and test change ideas

Module 5: The Emotional Experience

Understand and improve the emotional experiences of patients, families and caregivers:

  • what is meant by ’emotional experience’
  • why the way we interact with patients matters so much
  • researching and mapping patient’s emotional journeys during care
  • improving patient communication using AIDET
  • using HEART in service recovery

Module 6: The Clinical Experience

Discover why we must involve patients, to the extent they desire, in every decision that affects them:

  • communication practices for actively involving and empowering patients
  • assuring patient access to medical records and educational materials
  • dealing with social, cultural and educational barriers to communication
  • when and how to involve (or to limit the involvement of) family and friends

Module 7: The Functional Experience

Explore strategies for improving access to care, reducing waiting times and ensuring smooth transitions across service boundaries:

  • why the functional experience is just as important as the emotional and clinical experiences
  • how to identify opportunities to improve the functional experience
  • analysing and redesigning the patient’s journey

Module 8: The Physical and Digital Experiences

Appreciate how the design and layout of a healthcare facility affects healing and explore how digital healthcare applications can enhance or harm the patient experience:

  • the role of the built environment in patient, family and visitor experience
  • what the perfect healing environment looks and feels like
  • evidence-based standards for person-centred healthcare facilities
  • using digital health solutions to enhance patient experience

 

Course Leader

Benedict Stanberry

Course Factfile

  • Next session: 5 March 2026
  • Duration: 8 weeks
  • Commitment: 4-6 hours a week
  • Qualification: Certificate
  • Cost: £995
  • Location: Online

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