Regular patient satisfaction surveys
We aim to ensure that patients in our hospitals are not just healthy, but also satisfied when they leave our hospitals. Receiving their honest feedback during treatment and afterward is therefore important to us. On this basis, we are able to respond quickly to their individual perceptions during their hospital stay and bring about an improvement in care. So as to systematically record feedback, we have developed the Helios Service Monitor, which we use at all Helios hospitals. Employees at the hospitals survey our inpatients once a week to ask them about their overall satisfaction. Our goal is to respond to the patient feedback within 24 hours. The patient data are then processed anonymously. Each hospital can view its current daily, weekly, or monthly results individually. In addition, we evaluate the results of all Helios hospitals centrally once a month to establish a bigger picture on satisfaction and to identify the main areas of criticism. In 2023, 719,025 patients at hospitals in Germany were surveyed for their opinion. This figure is equivalent to 65% of the inpatients. Out of the people surveyed, 96% (2022: 96%) said that they were satisfied with their current hospital stay. Typical issues for criticism involved, for example, catering and housekeeping, or communication between the individual professional groups or specialized staff, respectively. Statistical anomalies are reviewed by local hospital management, which introduces measures for improvement as necessary.
96
%of patients surveyed were satisfied with their hospital stay.
Sustainable food service
Plant-based nutrition with less meat has lots of advantages and this is not simply true for the environment but also for people’s health. Our goal is to continue to expand the quality of catering provided in the hospitals and to make it more sustainable.
Since 2023, a total of 21 new lunchtime meals have been provided for patients with statutory health insurance, and these dishes have a higher proportion of plant-based ingredients. The menu includes ten vegetarian/vegan meals and two dishes with reduced meat content. This has enabled us to once again reduce the meat and fish content in the food provided for this group of patients by 17% to the current overall level of 43%. We have also increased the number of plant-based meals on the menu for patients with private insurance. In addition, 25% of the meals for this patient group are made with organically grown ingredients.
In cooperation with our partner PlanetV, our Catering business unit also developed a range of vegetarian and vegan dishes for the Helios cafeterias in 2023. This enables us to offer employees and guests a meat-free alternative. Since the reporting year, the head chefs at the individual hospitals have been able to integrate this meal range into their planning and offer a vegan dish every day.