Posted by Angela Fieler on June 5th, 2019 • No Comments »

The data is in. It’s official. There is a relationship between improving employee engagement, improving HCAHPS scores, and improving net profit margins. Press Ganey just published a study in Harvard Business Review, showing hospitals that improve over time in distinct HCAHPS measure OR employee engagement also improve in the overall ratings of care. When hospitals improve both, the improvement effect compounds on overall ratings. The analysis focuses on the impact of improving both the specified HCAHPS measures (Nurse Communication was used in the analysis) and employee engagement on the hospital’s profits.

Nurse Communication and Scores

The article ends with this advice: Read more...

The Secret to Service Recovery

Posted by Kristin Baird on May 30th, 2019 • No Comments »

Try as we might, there are times things go wrong and we disappoint our patients and other customers. There is plenty of data out there about the importance of healthcare service recovery, yet, very few healthcare organizations do it well. I still find the “trinket” approach as the most common method for service recovery. By this, I mean that people are trained to give a dissatisfied customer a gift card of some sort to appease them when things go awry. While this is a nice gesture, it does nothing to build employee skills in service recovery. Read more...

Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

Posted by Kristin Baird on May 28th, 2019 • No Comments »

These three words are the simplest, most recognizable instructions in the world. The standard for shampoo and conditioner, applies to other areas of life. Take front line customer service training for example. What if every leader whose staff goes through service training follows the following 3-step reinforcement plan? Observe. Give feedback. Repeat. Read more...

Knowing or Doing?

Posted by Kristin Baird on May 23rd, 2019 • No Comments »

Whenever we do patient experience skills training with physicians, inevitably one of them will say, “I learned this in medical school. Tell me something I don’t know.” Here’s the thing; knowing is not doing, and hearing is not learning. You must engage.

The last provider to say this during a training had scores in the tenth percentile for patient satisfaction. He was in search of the silver bullet and actually said, “Just tell me the one thing – the one thing that I should do to get my scores up.” Read more...

How Much is a Thank You Note Worth?

Posted by Kristin Baird on May 21st, 2019 • No Comments »

I was recently talking with a manger who was complaining about the amount of time she spent recruiting, interviewing and onboarding new employees. She had marginal employee engagement scores so we spent some time delving into how to build stronger engagement. One of the things I discovered was that she did very little to show appreciation and give recognition.

I’m a big believer in sending thank you notes to show appreciation and offer recognition for hard work. In this world of emails and text messages, a hand written note takes on special meaning. It says you took the time to put pen to paper and deliver it the old fashioned way. Read more...

The Nurses’ Hands

Posted by Kristin Baird on May 14th, 2019 • No Comments »

Last week was Nurses Week. It thrilled me to see everything from billboards to news articles, balloons and other fanfare celebrating this great profession of ours. I didn’t want to blog about Nurses Week. I felt my words would be drowned out by all the other celebratory messages. But it’s a new week, and I still want to celebrate all that nurses are, and do, for the world. Read more...

Words that Wound, Words that Work, Words that Wow

Posted by Angela Fieler on May 9th, 2019 • No Comments »

I had the opportunity to observe a primary care physician interact with an elderly patient yesterday. The physician was sitting at eye level with the patient, making good eye contact, and asking open-ended questions. He seemed to genuinely care about the patient and asked how he could help her. The patient, clearly in pain, expressed concern about her rapidly declining physical condition. She said her back hurt constantly, that nothing she did seemed to help. She’d never been in this much pain in her life. Read more...

What the Lab Results Won’t Show You

Posted by Kristin Baird on May 7th, 2019 • No Comments »

There are millions of things healthcare providers can learn from lab values and imaging results. But it’s important to remember that those are indicators of the physical condition and not a whole person’s condition. A blood panel won’t confirm that a patient is grieving the loss of a loved one, or that they are terrified of losing their home to foreclosure. A CT scan cannot diagnose loneliness or hopelessness. An MRI doesn’t show that a patient is confused about their diagnosis and scared to death. That is why compassion is so important. Read more...

What Patients Say About Their Portal Experience

Posted by Kristin Baird on April 30th, 2019 • No Comments »

Innovations in technology have helped to make great strides in improving the patient experience. That is, when they are used. Take the patient portal for example. My team and I recently conducted patient focus groups in three unique markets to assess patient expectations, desires and experiences. Several things became apparent during the analysis, one of which was the link between patient satisfaction and their use of the portal. The second was that nearly all of the portal “super-users” (individuals using the portal to schedule, communicate with providers, review visit summaries and check lab results) learned about the portal and its capabilities from their providers. Read more...

A Tale of Two Experiences

Posted by Angela Fieler on April 25th, 2019 • No Comments »

You know how the story starts: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…” How many people do or could use this opener to describe a recent healthcare experience? I had a ring-side seat to just an experience when my mom was recently hospitalized. On the first morning of her hospitalization, I asked the patient care tech (PCT) for the plan of care. His reply? “Ask me in about three months, when I graduate from nursing school”. Read more...

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