Patient Experience Management Training Course

Duration 10 days 19 modules · 65 contact hours
Level Intermediate Certificate on completion
Who attends Patient Experience Managers, Quality Improvement Managers and others
Fee from USD 2,200 KSh 190,000 for Kenyan organisations
Where 52 cities + online See dates by city
Next start 16 Nov 2026 Course code SD-HSM-060

Before you join: Participants should have experience working in a healthcare, public-health, insurance, aged-care or social-care service and basic familiarity with their organisation's patient pathways.

Dates & prices

Two start dates a month in every city, and live online on weekdays or weekends. Fees are per participant; classroom fees include tuition, materials, lunch and refreshments, and the certificate.

Suggest a date or city

Showing the next six months. Later dates, other cities and private deliveries for your team are available on request.

Course overview

Patient experience is shaped by more than courteous interactions. Appointment access, wayfinding, clinical communication, waiting, discharge, billing, complaint handling and continuity between services all affect whether people feel heard, informed and safe. Health systems often collect survey results but struggle to translate them into service changes that matter to patients, families and staff. This course addresses that gap by connecting experience data, patient stories, operational measures and improvement methods.

Participants learn to define patient experience, map priority journeys, gather feedback ethically, interpret CAHPS-style survey results, analyse complaints and identify experience gaps affecting safety, equity, trust and service use. They apply Experience-Based Co-Design, the IHI Model for Improvement, PDSA cycles, root-cause analysis and service standards to create targeted improvements. The programme also examines leadership behaviours, staff experience, communication reliability, digital access, governance and measurement systems for sustained performance.

Teaching combines focused instructor briefings with healthcare cases, facilitated group analysis, role-played patient interactions, service-design workshops and improvement planning. Participants work progressively on a patient experience challenge from their own hospital, clinic, insurer, public-health service or social-care setting. They leave with a patient experience improvement portfolio containing a journey map, evidence review, priority matrix, co-design plan, measurement dashboard and implementation roadmap.

The course suits managers and specialists responsible for outpatient, inpatient, emergency, diagnostic, community, digital or administrative services. It is equally relevant to quality teams, nursing leaders, patient relations professionals and clinical leaders who need practical ways to make care more respectful, accessible and responsive.

What you will be able to do

  • Map patient journeys using personas, touchpoints, moments of truth and service blueprints
  • Interpret patient feedback, complaints and experience survey data to identify priority issues
  • Apply Experience-Based Co-Design to involve patients, families and staff in service improvement
  • Design measurable patient experience improvements using the IHI Model for Improvement and PDSA cycles
  • Develop communication standards for informed consent, shared decisions, handovers and discharge
  • Create equity-focused access analyses using segmented experience and operational data
  • Build patient experience dashboards linking outcome, process, balancing and staff measures
  • Present a patient experience improvement portfolio with governance, measures and implementation actions

Benefits of attending

For you

  • Produce credible patient experience improvement proposals for senior clinical and operational leaders
  • Interpret survey, complaint and narrative feedback without relying on satisfaction scores alone
  • Facilitate patient and family involvement using a defined co-design process
  • Lead cross-functional discussions on access, communication and care-transition failures
  • Build a portfolio demonstrating patient-centred quality improvement capability

For your organisation

  • Improves identification of patient pain points across priority care pathways
  • Converts feedback and complaints into accountable improvement actions
  • Strengthens communication reliability during admission, treatment and discharge
  • Supports more equitable access through segmented experience-data analysis
  • Creates consistent governance, measures and reporting for patient experience priorities

Course modules

19 modules over 10 days

Participants can define patient experience and distinguish it from satisfaction, engagement and clinical quality.

  • Patient experience, satisfaction, engagement and activation distinguished through practical service examples
  • IHI Triple Aim links among experience, population health and cost
  • Donabedian structure, process and outcome measures applied to patient-facing services
  • Moments of truth identified across planned, urgent and long-term care
  • Patient, family and carer perspectives incorporated into service quality definitions
  • Experience risks connected to safety incidents, trust and treatment adherence

Participants can establish a patient experience strategy with clear accountability and decision rights.

  • Experience vision translated into measurable service commitments and annual priorities
  • Governance structures define executive sponsorship, ownership and escalation routes
  • RACI matrices assign responsibilities for feedback, improvement and reporting
  • Patient experience councils establish representation, remit and meeting discipline
  • Board reporting combines narrative feedback, trends, risks and improvement status
  • Service standards align with organisational values and regulatory obligations

Participants can segment patient populations and identify experience inequities requiring targeted action.

  • Population segmentation uses demographic, clinical, behavioural and access characteristics
  • Personas document goals, barriers, preferences and communication requirements
  • Equity stratifiers include language, disability, geography, income and digital access
  • Intersectionality exposes compounded barriers within apparently similar patient groups
  • Data suppression rules protect confidentiality in small population segments
  • Priority populations selected using disparity magnitude, risk and service reach

Participants can create evidence-based journey maps and service blueprints for priority pathways.

  • Journey map stages capture patient actions, emotions, questions and barriers
  • Touchpoints documented before, during and after each episode of care
  • Service blueprints connect frontstage interactions with backstage processes
  • Moments of truth ranked by emotional impact and clinical consequence
  • Swimlane maps reveal handoff failures between departments and external providers
  • Journey evidence combines observation, interviews, complaints and operational data

Participants can design a feedback architecture that captures timely and actionable patient insight.

  • Listening architecture combines surveys, interviews, observation, complaints and digital feedback
  • Sampling plans define populations, channels, timing and response targets
  • Closed-loop feedback processes acknowledge concerns and document follow-up actions
  • Real-time feedback kiosks assessed for accessibility, bias and response quality
  • Patient advisory groups provide recurring qualitative insight and challenge
  • Consent and confidentiality requirements guide feedback collection and storage

Participants can interpret experience survey results and identify statistically useful improvement signals.

  • CAHPS survey domains measure communication, access, coordination and respect
  • Top-box scoring compared with mean scores and response distributions
  • Response rates assessed for nonresponse bias and representativeness
  • Confidence intervals distinguish meaningful change from random survey variation
  • Driver analysis links overall ratings to specific service experience domains
  • Survey comments coded alongside quantitative findings for richer interpretation

Participants can collect and analyse patient stories to identify service needs and improvement opportunities.

  • Semi-structured interviews elicit experiences without leading patients or families
  • Empathy interviews explore expectations, emotions, workarounds and unmet needs
  • Thematic analysis codes recurring patterns, exceptions and high-impact incidents
  • Shadowing protocols document waiting, wayfinding and communication breakdowns
  • Affinity diagrams organise narrative evidence into actionable experience themes
  • Member checking tests whether findings accurately reflect participant accounts

Participants can analyse complaints and design fair, timely service recovery processes.

  • Complaint taxonomies classify communication, access, dignity, delay and billing concerns
  • Pareto charts identify recurring complaint categories with greatest service impact
  • Service recovery steps include acknowledgement, investigation, explanation and remedy
  • Root-cause analysis separates individual error from process and system failure
  • ISO 10002 principles guide accessible, responsive and accountable complaint handling
  • Learning reviews convert resolved complaints into preventive improvement actions

Participants can specify communication practices that support informed and respectful care decisions.

  • Teach-back confirms patient comprehension of treatment, medicines and follow-up
  • Plain-language principles reduce jargon in verbal and written communication
  • Shared decision-making uses choice awareness, options discussion and preference elicitation
  • Informed consent conversations document benefits, risks, alternatives and questions
  • Interpreter workflows protect accuracy, confidentiality and patient autonomy
  • SBAR handovers strengthen information continuity between clinical teams

Participants can diagnose access and waiting problems using patient experience and flow measures.

  • Access measures track appointment availability, abandonment and third-next-available slots
  • Demand-capacity analysis compares incoming requests with appointment supply
  • Queue mapping identifies bottlenecks, uncertainty and avoidable patient waiting
  • Waiting-time communication sets realistic expectations and proactive status updates
  • No-show analysis distinguishes access barriers from scheduling and reminder failures
  • Digital booking journeys assessed for usability, accessibility and channel exclusion

Participants can improve patient experience at admission, transfer, discharge and follow-up.

  • Admission workflows clarify what patients should expect during their stay
  • Medication reconciliation reduces confusion at transfer and discharge points
  • Discharge planning confirms transport, equipment, contacts and follow-up arrangements
  • Care-transition checklists assign tasks, owners and completion evidence
  • Warm handoffs connect patients with community, primary and social-care services
  • Follow-up calls identify unresolved needs after discharge or outpatient procedures

Participants can plan and facilitate a co-design process with patients, families and staff.

  • Experience-Based Co-Design stages frame discovery, prioritisation, design and review
  • Recruitment plans include affected patients, carers, staff and community representatives
  • Trigger films use patient narratives to focus joint improvement discussions
  • Emotional mapping identifies high and low points across care journeys
  • Co-design workshops convert shared priorities into testable service changes
  • Participation safeguards address power differences, accessibility and reimbursement

Participants can connect staff conditions and leadership practices to patient experience outcomes.

  • Relational coordination examines shared goals, knowledge and mutual respect
  • Psychological safety enables staff to report patient experience failures early
  • Intentional rounding structures proactive conversations about comfort and information needs
  • Staff huddles surface daily experience risks and coordinate immediate responses
  • Recognition practices reinforce observable behaviours valued by patients and colleagues
  • Burnout indicators interpreted alongside staffing, workload and experience results

Participants can assess service barriers and specify inclusive patient experience improvements.

  • Universal design principles improve physical, sensory and digital service access
  • Accessibility audits assess signage, forms, facilities and communication channels
  • Cultural safety examines power, assumptions and patient-defined respectful care
  • Trauma-informed care principles support choice, trustworthiness and emotional safety
  • Reasonable adjustments documented for disability, communication and sensory requirements
  • Equity impact assessments test unintended consequences before implementation

Participants can evaluate digital service journeys while protecting inclusion, privacy and usability.

  • Digital journey maps trace portal, telehealth, messaging and self-service interactions
  • Usability testing observes task completion, errors, confusion and recovery
  • WCAG principles guide accessible patient portals and digital content
  • Telehealth protocols address identity, privacy, contingency and caregiver participation
  • Digital exclusion risks identified through channel preference and access data
  • Online feedback workflows route concerns, safeguarding issues and urgent requests

Participants can build a balanced patient experience measurement framework and dashboard specification.

  • Balanced scorecards combine outcome, process, balancing and equity measures
  • Operational measures link experience results with flow, safety and staffing
  • Run charts display performance shifts over time and test interventions
  • Statistical process control distinguishes common-cause from special-cause variation
  • Dashboard specifications define metric owners, refresh cycles and action thresholds
  • Narrative intelligence integrates stories with quantitative performance reporting

Participants can test and scale patient experience changes using structured improvement methods.

  • IHI Model for Improvement frames aims, measures and change ideas
  • SMART aims specify patient group, target, timeframe and desired improvement
  • PDSA cycles test changes at manageable scale before wider adoption
  • Driver diagrams connect outcome aims with primary and secondary drivers
  • Process mapping identifies waste, rework and unnecessary patient effort
  • Failure modes and effects analysis anticipates experience and safety risks

Participants can develop an implementation plan that embeds new experience practices into routine work.

  • Stakeholder mapping identifies influence, concerns, dependencies and engagement approaches
  • ADKAR assessments identify awareness, desire, knowledge, ability and reinforcement gaps
  • Implementation plans sequence pilots, training, communications and operational readiness
  • Standard work documents critical patient-facing steps and escalation requirements
  • Audit and feedback cycles monitor adoption, reliability and unintended effects
  • Sustainability plans assign review cadence, ownership and resource commitments

Participants can build, review and present a complete patient experience improvement portfolio for a priority service pathway.

  • Problem statements define affected population, journey stage and evidence baseline
  • Journey maps and feedback findings establish priority experience failure points
  • Co-design plans specify participants, safeguards, workshop outputs and decision rights
  • Driver diagrams and PDSA plans translate priorities into tested change actions
  • Measurement dashboards define outcomes, process measures, balancing measures and equity cuts
  • Implementation roadmaps assign milestones, accountable owners, risks and governance reviews

Exercises and examples are adapted to each cohort's sectors and roles.

What you take back to work

  1. Patient journey map and service blueprint template
  2. Patient feedback and complaint analysis framework
  3. Experience-Based Co-Design project plan
  4. Patient experience measurement dashboard specification
  5. PDSA-based patient experience improvement plan
  6. Patient experience governance and implementation roadmap

Who should attend

  • Patient Experience Managers — need structured methods for converting feedback into service improvements
  • Quality Improvement Managers — need patient-centred measures within improvement portfolios
  • Nurse Managers — need reliable communication and care-transition practices for frontline teams
  • Clinical Service Managers — need to improve access, flow and patient-facing service standards
  • Patient Relations and Complaints Leads — need systematic complaint analysis and recovery processes
  • Health System Leaders — need governance and measurement for organisation-wide experience priorities

Skills and tools covered

Patient journey mappingExperience data analysisCo-design facilitationService improvement planningPatient communication standardsExperience performance measurement

Tools and standards

IHI Model for Improvement, Experience-Based Co-Design, CAHPS, ISO 10002

How the course runs

Training methodology

The programme uses short instructor briefings followed by healthcare cases, data interpretation tasks, group workshops, simulations and individual application planning. Participants analyse realistic outpatient, inpatient, emergency and digital-service scenarios, including complaints, survey extracts and patient narratives. Facilitated exercises use journey mapping, co-design, cause analysis and PDSA planning. Each module adds material to an individual patient experience improvement portfolio. Trainers adapt cases and discussion prompts to the participant mix while retaining the same methods, tools and expected deliverables.

Requirements and prerequisites

Participants should have experience working in a healthcare, public-health, insurance, aged-care or social-care service and basic familiarity with their organisation's patient pathways. Experience with surveys, complaints, quality improvement or service management is useful but not essential. Participants should be prepared to bring a current service challenge, anonymised feedback themes or available performance data. No clinical qualification, statistical software expertise, formal improvement certification or prior design-thinking training is required. The course explains the required measurement and improvement methods before participants apply them.

A typical training day

08:30 – 10:30First session
10:30 – 10:45Refreshment break
10:45 – 12:30Second session
12:30 – 13:30Lunch and networking
13:30 – 15:00Third session
15:00 – 15:15Refreshment break
15:15 – 16:30Workshop and daily review

Live online deliveries follow the same structure in East Africa Time, with shorter screen blocks and longer breaks.

What the fee includes

  • Instruction by a practitioner facilitator
  • Full course workbook and materials
  • Exercise files, templates and case studies
  • Refreshments and lunch on classroom deliveries
  • Certificate of completion
  • Post-course application plan

Frequently asked questions

Participants need practical familiarity with a healthcare or social-care service, patient pathway or quality issue. Prior formal training in quality improvement, statistics or patient experience is not required.

Bring a current patient experience challenge, such as delayed access, poor discharge feedback or recurring communication complaints. Anonymised survey extracts, complaint themes or process maps are helpful but optional.

It is designed for patient experience, quality, nursing, clinical operations, patient relations and service-management professionals. It also suits clinical leaders responsible for improving a specific care pathway.

General quality courses address clinical quality, safety and operational improvement across broad service areas. This course concentrates on patient and family perspectives, communication, access, co-design, feedback systems and experience measurement.

Participants develop an improvement portfolio around a real service pathway during the programme. The resulting journey map, evidence review, measures and action plan can be refined with local stakeholders after the course.

Each day runs from 08:30 to 16:30 and provides about 6.5 contact hours, with breaks and lunch outside teaching time. The first week builds diagnosis and listening skills; the second week focuses on co-design, measurement, improvement and the final portfolio presentation.

Questions about this course?

Ask about dates, fees, group bookings or running it for your team. Our training team replies by email.

Ask on WhatsApp info@skillsetdevelopment.com

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