staff. "If we get negative feedback on a survey, a director will follow up
with the patient through a hand-written card or even a direct phone
call," says Ms. Williams. "A lot of patients are surprised to get a call
from a director because they think 'I'm filling out this survey, but it's not
gonna do anything.' The phone call shows them that we do intend to do
something."
The goal, of course, is to prevent negative comments in the first
place. That's easier said than done — especially in those situations
where impatient patients' procedures are delayed, and they're asked to
wait for longer-than-expected stretches of time. Lakeland's staff is able
to reduce patients' frustration simply by suggesting they watch some-
thing on the facility-provided iPads, a patient-satisfier that's mainly
used for children but is available for everyone. In other cases, the staff
takes a preemptive approach. When patients appear a bit antsy,
Lakeland staff will approach the patient before the patient approaches
them and present gift cards for local area restaurants. "We'll go up to
the patient and say, 'Look I'm sorry you've waited so long. Here's a gift
card for you guys to have a meal on us,'" says Ms. Williams. Lakeland
generally gives out around 4 or 5 gift cards per month for a variety of
reasons, and Ms. Williams says it's helped to minimize any negative
responses on the facility's patient surveys.
After surgery, every patient receives a hand-written card from the
entire staff at Lakeland. Each department gets his or her entire staff to
sign the cards, so patients will routinely get cards with signatures in
the double-digits. "It's something our patients definitely appreciate,"
says Ms. Williams. "A large amount of our surveys include comments
from patients saying how much they liked the personal touch of the
thank-you cards."
If you're looking for ways to ramp up your own facility's patient
satisfaction efforts, Ms. Williams can't stress the importance of the
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