I was recently dining with friends at a restaurant after having just completed a workshop on service recovery. During my workshop, I had talked about the typical restaurant experience where the wait staff asks how everything is, and, regardless of what you really think about the food, you say, “fine.” I find that about 98 percent of my workshop participants report that they say “fine” in many less-than-satisfactory situations just to avoid confrontation. Read more...
Over the weekend, I had the pleasure of seeing the movie The Mighty Macs. It’s a story of a fledgling women’s college basketball team that rose to the national championship in the early 70’s at a time when the words “women” and “athletics” were rarely spoken in the same sentence. Read more...
Remember the scene from the movie A Few Good Men when Jack Nicholson’s character shouted from the witness stand, “You want the truth? You can’t handle the truth!”? I often feel like shouting that myself. There are so many times I face off with leaders who want us to come in, wave the magic wand, and fix their patient satisfaction scores rather than facing the truth about the underlying culture that is at the root of poor patient satisfaction. Read more...
What goes up must come down, right? This indisputable law has been regarded as a hard, fast fact for hundreds of years, but it doesn’t have to apply to your patient satisfaction scores. Just because your scores go up, doesn’t mean they have to fall again. And on the flip side, just because they go up, doesn’t mean they’ll stay up.
I was recently chatting with a client about what it takes to sustain positive change and I was shocked to realize how many leaders assume that positive changes aren’t sustainable. Read more...
This is the twelfth and final entry of my in-depth interview with a patient after concluding her cancer treatment.
Many of you have followed along as I chronicled Elizabeth’s journey through eight weeks of chemotherapy. I’m very grateful to her for sharing her thoughts and feelings about her healthcare encounters. She is astute and articulate in a way that has helped me tell her story and provided some good learning opportunities for myself and the readers. I’m glad to report that she is recovering nicely and slowly gaining her strength. Today, she shares her thoughts in summary about the experience. Read more...
Last week, the Department of Health and Human Services scrapped plans to mystery shop thousands of primary care practices in an effort to assess access. I must admit, I was disappointed, but not surprised that physicians pushed back with such vehemence. There was an outcry that it was “Big Brother” watching. But the truth is mystery shopping is becoming much more prevalent throughout the healthcare industry.
Healthcare organizations across the country are making use of mystery shopping phone calls to assess access, as well as a number of other criteria that influence patients’ decisions. And what those organizations are learning is often surprising. Read more...
This is the tenth entry in my in-depth interview with a patient undergoing cancer treatment.
“Is she a patient or a client?” Many of us have debated the semantics used when describing one of the most vital stakeholders of your organization.
Elizabeth:
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This is the ninth entry in my in-depth interview with a patient undergoing cancer treatment.
We talk about the little things that really matter when establishing rapport with patients. Elizabeth shares a few examples of some seemingly minor gestures that left a lasting, memorable impression.
Elizabeth:
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I’ve always known that if you want to be creative and energetic, you’ll do best by surrounding yourself with like-minded people. That philosophy was reaffirmed within minutes of arriving at the Beryl Institute’s Patient Experience Conference this week. It was so energizing to be surrounded by amazing patient experience champions who, like me, are passionate about creating a better healthcare world for our patients, families, and all those who serve them. Read more...
Disney is often held as one of the vanguards of customer service. They are, indeed, masters at creating memorable guest experiences in the entertainment and hospitality industries. And for years, healthcare has been looking for ways to learn from Disney in improving the patient experience. One of the most commonly borrowed Disney-isms that I see in my consulting work is the concept of “onstage and offstage.” In other words, anything that a patient hears, sees, smells, touches should be treated as “onstage.” Anything deemed “offstage” should be kept out of sight or earshot. And there is no place on earth where this is more important than in healthcare settings. Everything that the patient comes in contact with must help to instill confidence in the organization. Read more...
