Medical Mystery Shopping

About Medical Mystery Shopping

Mystery shopping, or secret shopping, is a tool used by companies in a wide range of industries to measure the quality of their products and services. Secret shoppers pose as normal customers to gather information about actual shopper experiences. In the healthcare industry, secret shoppers pose as patients or patient friends and family members to assess the quality of patient experiences in those facilities.

Types of Medical Mystery Shopping

The Baird Group specializes in providing secret shoppers to the healthcare industry. Our medical mystery shopping experts provide the following services:

Phone Calls: Mystery callers assess phone encounters to multiple locations that are chosen by the client. Through the use of previously determined scenarios, the callers score staff on multiple areas based on a customized survey designed by Baird Group for your organization. The secret shopper scenarios and the survey used may target particular problem areas, such as same-day appointment availability, friendliness of the staff, or ease of access.

Walkthrough Visits: Mystery visitors posing as a friend or family member of a patient gather general impressions about their experiences, including way-finding, atmosphere, and employee encounters. They spend time in public areas listening and observing the environment, staff, and other customer reactions. Photo documentation is included in the report.

Patient Visits: Using real-life situations with a predetermined scenario, mystery patients will pose as patients with symptoms of a non-urgent matter. They are able to provide information about the total patient experience, including interactions with all staff: phone attendants, lab technicians, front desk staff, nurses, and physicians. Mystery patients will also provide narrative information and feelings about waiting time, the waiting room, and exam rooms. Patient visits can be used in urgent care/ER, clinics, and outpatient and inpatient experiences (through the use of a care partner observer).

Care Partner Observer: The Baird group offers the care partner observer (CPO) as a method of mystery shopping used to delve deeper into the patient experience. This method of mystery shopping offers the healthcare organization direct and indirect observation with documentation of facts, as well as emotional responses to situations, settings, and encounters. A CPO is a mystery shopper who is introduced to the hospital staff as a family friend, neighbor, niece, nephew, etc. who is there as a companion to the patient. By posing as someone with a personal connection to the patient, the CPO is able to witness first-hand accounts of what the patient and the patient's real family would experience, all while observing the behaviors of the attending staff.

To learm more about how medical mystery shopping can help shape your patients' experiences, contact mysteryshopping@baird-group.com.

Download Our Medical Mystery Shopping Brochure