Outpatient Surgery Magazine, providing current information on Surgical Services, Surgical Facility Administration, Outpatient Surgery News and Trends, OR Excellence and more.
Issue link: http://outpatientsurgery.uberflip.com/i/685863
J U N E 2 0 1 6 O R E X C E L L E N C E . C O M 2 9 late that in our patient portals, to make the pre-admission process go as smooth- ly as possible. The Ritz Carlton is a Marriott property. But if I'm staying there, they address me as Ms. Dennis, they'll say, "How can I help you today?" or "It's my pleasure to assist you." We could do that when we're rounding with patients, or their families in the waiting room. We shouldn't just point the way, but walk them down the hall. What makes high-performance companies like Amazon or the Ritz different is that they take customer service to another level. It sounds like a cliché, but it makes the customer feel special. • It doesn't cost anything to be nice. Everything's not always going to go per- fectly in surgery, but the most important thing is to be able to take care of each other. Here's an example: One morning I was moving through the facility, deliv- ering the day's orders, all business. I saw a surgeon who'd be operating that morning and asked him, "Did you get the H&P signed?" He turned to me and said, "Good morning to you, too, Vangie." I learned my lesson: Courtesy doesn't take much more than a few extra seconds. • Making customers your culture. Customer service requires buy-in, for sure, and I've seen resistance to it when I've started at new facilities. In health care, people are hard-wired to standards, to a certain way of treating patients. But if you're aiming to be a customer-focused organization, it's something you have to expect of all your employees. It has to be ingrained all the way down through your staff. You can have the best nurse ever, who maybe has poor social skills or difficulty interacting with your surgeons or the rest of your staff. And if you say, "She's a great nurse, but …", as soon as you say "but" you've just cancelled out everything before it. OSM