There’s been a significant rise in the number of people seeking mental health treatment in recent years, and that’s a trend that’s expected to continue in the years ahead. One estimate suggests that depression will be the most common health condition across the globe by 2030, which will place a greater importance on the capacity of mental health facilities to deliver quality service.
There’s a moral duty for mental health facilities to provide the best possible experience to their clients, but there’s also a business imperative. With thousands of mental health facilities opening across the United States each year, only the best facilities will get ahead in a hypercompetitive field.
In this post, we’re going to run through a few handy tips that will ensure that mental health facilities can deliver their very best to their clients.
Invest in Staff Wellbeing
Your employees will be the backbone of the organization’s success. Having a talented team of motivated, professional employees who want to change their client’s lives for the better can have a transformative impact on the client experience. While your team will have innate talents and drive, it’s important that the facility supports staff as much as they can. That means paying them well, allowing for a lot of time off (extremely important in mental health professions), and having a culture of communication that allows team members to speak to management about any issues they may have.
Simplify Your Processes
Mental health facilities exist for the betterment of clients. Alas, all too often, employees have to spend a significant part of their time simply taking care of documentation and other admin tasks that detract from time that they should be spending helping clients. While there’s no way to completely eliminate admin responsibilities, there are ways to reduce the amount of time workers spend doing them. One method is to use behavioral health software such as Lightning Step, which helps to simplify daily tasks and ensures the documentation is as efficient as possible. With that, workers will be able to dedicate more time and energy to the people who matter the most — the clients.
Gather Feedback
It would be nice if your mental health facility would deliver a flawless client experience from the very first moment that it opens its doors. In reality, that’s highly unlikely. Even the best facilities don’t get everything right at the first time of asking; it’s a process. One way to improve the experience of those who pass through your doors is to gather feedback from previous clients. There’ll be things that your clients liked, didn’t like, and didn’t have a chance to form an opinion on because it wasn’t part of your service. Working to gather feedback can be highly beneficial to not only figure out what you’re doing right or wrong but also the types of changes you should consider moving forward. You don’t have to take every comment on board, but facilities that completely fail to listen to their clients are taking a big — and unnecessary — risk.
Invest in Staff Training
If you’ve hired correctly, then you’ll have motivated employees on your team. It’s best to think of an employee as a seed that needs nurturing before it can offer the highest level of service. While they’ll likely have qualifications, facilities can help to turbocharge their offerings by investing in staff training, including in improving soft skills such as how to communicate effectively with clients of various backgrounds. Allocating space in the budget for staff development should also lead to an improvement in your staff retention rate since the best employees are always looking to upskill.
Maintain Consistent Standards
Maintaining consistent standards is important for all types of businesses, but especially mental health facilities. Success metrics shouldn’t fluctuate; rather, the facility should deliver a consistent level of care that delivers a consistent level of results. This can be achieved by creating a strong culture of teamwork at the facility, such as by including all employees in team meetings and the decision-making process. After all, it’s much easier to achieve excellent results when everyone is pulling in the same direction.
Continually Improve
Finally, instilling a culture of ongoing improvement and development is essential for delivering the best possible client experience. Approaches to mental health treatments are evolving all the time, and it’s only the facilities that commit to tweaking their services and making improvements that will ultimately get ahead. While it’s important to focus on the here and now, it’s also key to think about how you can do better tomorrow.
