Patient Experience Management

Patient Experience as experienced by the patient…

Posted by

0

…is not a pretty picture.

At least that is how it seemed to me today during my son’s visit to a specialist at a renowned children’s hospital.  The hospital uses and equally renowned EHR–you can substitute the name of your favorite EHR and the story remains as relevant.

Actual face-time with the doc–30 minutes.  The clinical side of the patient experience was perfect. It could not have been any better–I awarded her bonus points.

Here’s the part I think most hospitals are missing.  There is another part of the Patient Experience which has little or nothing to do with the patient. It is also the part which lingers most in my memory and the one about which I am quick to repeat to others.  What part is that? It is the part that involves all of the non-clinical processes associated with the visit, such as:

  • Complete the forms-could have been done online
  • Provide the insurance information-was done the last two visits
  • Wait
  • Schedule the next appointment
  • Wait
  • Print out the results of this visit
  • Wait
  • Settle the charges
Total time spent on the non-clinical patient experience–30 minutes.
Any time a patient visit requires another family member or guardian to be present, Patient Experience Management by definition becomes Family Experience Management. Instead of poor processes wasting one person’s time, the time of two people are wasted by being inefficient and ineffective.
“How was the visit?” Asked my wife.
“Fine,” I reported. And then I spent two minutes telling her about the bad experience I had dealing with the non-clinical processes, those processes involved with running the business.
So, it was great to know my son is healthy, but we sort of knew that going in. It wasn’t great to be subjected to the inefficiencies and ineffectiveness of their processes and systems.  What will I remember about that experience as I am driving him to his next appointment? Will I remember how well he is doing and how professional the doctor is?  Or, will I remember to plan for an additional thirty minutes to allow the staff to perform all of the automated business processes to check us in and out?
The purpose of this post is to get us thinking that Patient Experience Management and Family Experience Management has to do with everything that happens from the time the person enters the facility until they leave it. If the only good part of the experience occurs during the examination, then the overall patient experience as experienced by the patient can be no better than mediocre.

Patient Experience Management: Why Men Can’t Boil Water

Posted by

0

There was a meeting last week of the scions of the Philadelphia business community. The business leaders began to arrive at the suburban enclave at the appointed hour. The industries they represented included medical devices, automotive, retail, pharmaceutical, chemicals, and management consulting. No one at their respective organizations was aware of the clandestine meeting. These men were responsible for managing millions of dollars of assets, overseeing thousands of employees, and the fiduciary responsibility of international conglomerates. Within their ranks they had managed mergers and acquisitions and divestitures. They were group with which to be reckoned and their skills were the envy of many.

They arrived singularly, each bearing gifts. Keenly aware of the etiquette, they removed their shoes and placed them neatly by the door.

The pharmaceutical executive was escorted to the kitchen.

“Did your wife make you bring that?” I asked.

He glanced quickly at the cellophane wrapped cheese ball, and sheepishly nodded. “What are we supposed to do with those?” He asked as he eyeballed the brightly wrapped toothpicks that looked banderillas, the short barbed sticks a matador would use.

“My wife made me put them out,” I replied. “She said we should use these with the hors d’oeuvres.”

He nodded sympathetically; he too had seen it too many times. I went to the front door to admit the next guest. He stood there holding two boxes of wafer thin, whole wheat crackers. Our eyes met, knowingly, as if to say, “Et Tu Brutus”. The gentleman following him was a senior executive in the automotive industry. He carried a plate of freshly baked chocolate chip cookies. And so it went for the next 15 to 20 minutes, industry giants made to look small by the gifts they were forced to carry.

The granite countertop was lined with the accoutrements for the party. “It’s just poker,” I had tried to explain. My explanation had fallen on deaf ears. There is a right way and a wrong way to entertain, I had been informed. Plates, utensils, and napkins were lined up at one end of the counter, followed in quick succession by the crock pot of chili that had been brewing for some eight hours, the cheese tray, a nicely arrayed platter of crackers, assorted fruits, a selection of anti-pastas, cups, ice, and a selection of beverages. In the mind of our wives, independent of what we did for a living and the amount of power and responsibility we each wielded, we were incapable of making it through a four hour card game without their intervention.

I deftly stabbed a gherkin with my tooth pick. “Hey,” I hollered “put a coaster under that glass. Are you trying to get us all in trouble? And you,” I said to Pharmacy Boy, “Get a napkin and wipe up the chili you spilled. She’ll be back here in four hours, and we have to have this place looking just as good as when she left.”  I thought I was having the neighborhood guys over for poker; I was wrong. So were each of the other guys. We had been outwitted by our controllers, our spouses. Nothing is ever as simple as it first appears. We didn’t even recognize we were being managed until they made themselves known.

Who’s managing the show at your hospital, you or the patients?  The answer to that question depends on who owns the relationship, who controls the dialog.  If most of the conversation about your organization originates with them, the best you are doing is reacting to them as they initiate the social media spin, or try to respond once the phone started ringing.  It’s a pretty ineffective way of managing.  It’s as though they dealt the cards, and they know ahead of time that you are holding nothing.

There are times when my manager isn’t home, times when I wear my shoes inside the house—however, I wear little cloth booties over them to make certain I don’t mar the floor.  One time when I decided to push the envelope, I didn’t even separate the darks from the whites when I did the laundry.  We got in an hour of poker before I broke out the mop and vacuum.  One friend tried to light a cigar—he will be out of the cast in a few weeks.

The Spandex Insecurity—the Ego has Landed

Posted by

0

Now before you get all upset about the sexist picture, at least read a little bit of this to see why I selected it. Yesterday morning, five miles into my run, I was feeling pretty good about myself. I had passed seven runners, had a nice comfortable rhythm, no insurmountable aches, and Crosby Stills & Nash banging away on my MP3. I don’t like being passed—never have. Some people say I’m competitive. They say other things too, but this is a family show.

I’m a mile away from my car when I see a slight blurring movement out of the corner of my left eye. A second later I am passed by a young woman wearing a blue and yellow, midriff revealing spandex contraption. Her abs are tight enough that I could have bounced a quarter off of them. She is pushing twins in an ergonomic stroller that looked like it was designed by the same people who designed the Big Wheel. I stared at her long enough to notice that not only was she not sweating, she didn’t even appear winded. She returned my glance with a smile that seemed to suggest that someone my age should consider doing something less strenuous—like chess. Game, set, match.

Having recovered nicely from yesterday’s ego deflation, today at the gym I decide to work out on the Stairmaster, the one built like a step escalator. I place my book on the reading stand, slip on my readers—so much for the Lasik surgery, and start to climb.

Five minutes into my climb, a spandex clad woman chipper enough to be the Stepford twin of the girl I encountered on my run mounts the adjoining Stairmaster. We exchange pleasantries, she asks what I’m reading, and we return to our respective workouts. The first thing I do is to toss my readers into my running bag. I steal a glance at the settings on her machine and am encouraged that my METS reading is higher than hers, even though I have no idea whether that is good or bad.

Fifteen minutes, twenty minutes. I am thirsty, and water is dripping off me like I had just showered with one of Kohler’s full body shower fixtures. I want to take a drink and I want to towel off, but I will not be the first to show weakness. Sooner or later she will need a drink. I can hold out, I tell myself. Twenty-five minutes—she breaks. I wait another two minutes before drinking, just to show her I really didn’t need it.
She eyeballs me. Game on. She cranks up her steps per minute to equal mine. Our steps are in synch. I remove my hands from the support bars as a sign that I don’t need the support. Without turning my head, I can see that she’s noticed. She makes a call from her cell to demonstrate that she has the stamina to exercise and talk.

When she hangs up I ask her how long she usually does this machine—we are approaching forty minutes and I am losing feeling in my legs. She casually replies that she does it until she’s tires, indicating she’s got a lot left in her. I tell her I lifted for an hour before I started; she gives me a look to suggest she’s not buying that. I add another ten steps a minute to my pace. She matches me step for step.

Fifty minutes. I’m done toying with her. I tell Spandex I’m not stopping until she does. She simply smiles. Her phone rings and she pauses her machine—be still my heart—and talks for a few minutes. I secretly scale down my pace, placing my towel over the readout hoping she won’t notice. She steps down from the machine. My muscles are screaming for me to quit, but I don’t until I see that she’s left the gym.

Victory at any cost. What’s the point? For what was lost, for what was gained (McKendree Spring). Men and women. Customers and companies. Most parties will deny they are competing, yet neither will yield. The customer is always right–Turns out it makes a better bumper sticker than it does a business philosophy. Nobody’s business policies reflect that attitude. If anything, were you to listen to what CSRs are instructed to do for the callers and compare that with what they are instructed not to do for the callers, it’s clear that their mandate is to minimize the negative impact to the firm, without regard to the negative impact to the customer. Remember the last time you tried to dispute an insurance claim?

Part 2: Are 7 sigmas 8 too many?

Posted by

0

The worst part about being wrong in public is having an audience.  Yesterday marked the eight-and-a-half year point since my heart attack.  I celebrated with a six mile run.  Instead of hiding my car keys under the bumper like I always do, I stuck them in the pouch of my MP3 case.

I was back within the hour and in a hurry to get to my water bottle that I had locked in the car.  No keys.  After considerable thought and machinations of my considerable cerebral skills I decided to retrace my steps; all twelve thousand of them.  Still no keys.  I called my wife and she retraced my route.  No keys.

I had apparently out-thunk myself.  We called AAA to get them to make us a key, and waited—two hours.  After several failed attempts Sparkie finally unlocked the car.  I opened the door, placed the palm of my right hand on the keys, reached across the seat for my water bottle…

The keys, locked inside the car right where I had left them.  No need to worry about missing any subsequent MENSA meetings.  My wife simply gave me the look—men, you know the look.  It is the one that means I will not tear into you now; instead I will save this for when I really need it.

I threw all seven of my sigmas at solving a zero-sigma problem, looking for a complex solution when an easy one would have worked.

Patient Experience Management (PEM) solutions are often approached in the same manner—sigma overkill—reengineering some arcane, one-off process without taking time to understand the real nature of the problem or its outcome.

In yesterday’s blog we drew a comparison between clinical PEM and non-clinical PEM (http://wp.me/pyKA6-Ih).  We also inferred that non-clinical PEM processes are not unlike some of the process employed by hotels.

So, what might be done to improve non-clinical PEM?  What easy wins can be achieved?

When you arrive at a hotel for an event or an overnight stay where do you go?  You go to Reception or to the front desk to check in.  When you leave you go to the same place to check out, or you bypass the process and simply leave.  You can do that because you have been a guest of the hotel.

Now let us look at the same process at a hospital.  Where do you go?  You go to Admissions, and to leave you go to Discharge.  Other than hospitals, can you think of another establishment that uses the terms admissions and discharge?

Prisons.

Admission and Discharge are suggestive of many things, but the feeling that does not spring to mind is the notion that anyone working at the prison cares much about inmate experience management.  Admissions and Discharge do not evoke warm, welcoming feelings.  They do not lead you to feel that your stay is in any way voluntary.  In fact, even ignoring that the medical vernacular for the term discharge is often used with adjectives of color—the yellowish discharge—the term discharge infers that you do not have permission to leave until you are discharged.

Ever notice the big open space right next to admissions?  Know what it is called?

The Waiting Room.  What happens there?  You wait.  It is a special, nicely furnished place designed for you and others to do nothing, prepared for you to waste your time.

Your appointment was scheduled weeks ago.  You are probably apprehensive and a little worried about what may happen to you over the next few hours or days.  You have blocked out your calendar to be there—taken off from work, arranged for a baby sitter, and arranged for someone to prepare meals for the children while you are away.  You probably needed someone else to adjust their calendar to ensure you get to the hospital on time.  The hospital told you when to arrive.  You are there on time but someone somewhere is not ready for you.

Did they forget you were coming, or does the very nature of having a waiting room infer that their time is more valuable than theirs?  The hospital is not only okay with the idea that you will be made to wait, they have preplanned it as part of the patient experience and built a special place for that activity to occur.

This waiting experience reminds me of my flight arriving at the airport only to find out that there is no gate at which to park the plane or no attendant to roll the jet-way to the plane’s door.  How is this possible?  Have they not known for the last several months that every day at such and such time this plane will be arriving?

So, here we are.  We have not even been admitted and our non-clinical patient experience is already negative.

Sometimes the best solutions are the first ones overlooked.

Patient Experience Management: For Adults Only

Posted by

0

This post is the first in a series that may make you rethink everything you think you know about Patient Experience Management.

Last week I checked in to a hotel for three days; seventy-two hours.  I was at the hotel for an event that required ninety minutes; one-and-half hours.

A few weeks prior to my stay someone told me where I had to be, how long I would be there, and what I would be doing.  My reservation was made, and I sorted out how I would get to the hotel.

The check-in process was flawless.  My room was ready.  My wakeup calls were timely. The room was serviced daily.  Plates with food arrived.  Plates without food departed.  The requirements for my ninety minute event were met and I was escorted to the correct room.

On hour seventy-two I checked out of the hotel and I received a copy of my bill.  The last thing I encountered was having someone asking me how my experience was.

Try thinking the remainder of this discussion through with me.

Of the seventy-two hours I was at the hotel only two percent of it (1.5 hours) had to do with my reason for being at the hotel—the presentation I was giving at the HFMA.

So, you may ask, how did it go?  The speech or the stay at the hotel.  Two different experiences.  Let us say that my speech tanked, or that people couldn’t find the room, or that the projector did not work.  If someone asked me, how “was your speech,” I might conclude by saying, “The speech was awful, but the hotel was great.”

On the other hand, what if the hotel lost my prepaid reservation, was only able to give me one night instead of two, made me sit in the lobby for two hours because my room wasn’t ready, could not get the air conditioning working in my room, and then billed me for two nights instead of one.

If that was the case I would conclude that my experience was awful, and I would go out of my way to let everyone know about it.

To those who want to argue that a hospital is not a hotel I will concede the point.  However, I will argue that for those who actually wish to significantly improve patient experience management that much of the improvement can be made by treating it as a hotel, and by treating your patients as guests.

For the time being, let us agree to have this discussion separate and apart from the Emergency department—we will address the ED in a later post.

The patient experience, which many claim to be managing, may be grouped into two parts—the treatment, and then everything else that happens to you from the time you schedule your visit to the time when you finish paying you bill.

Most patients fully expect their experience of their treatment will be very positive—that is why they came to the hospital.  Patients know that for treatable issues they will leave the hospital better than when they entered.  Therefore, it is a given that they will rate their treatment experience as a positive one.  A positive treatment is considered de rigueur.

However positive, the patient often views their treatment experience as the result of the procedure they underwent.  If they came in for their gall bladder and leave without their left leg, no amount of explaining how well the amputation went will convince them their experience was positive.

Both inpatients and outpatients spend the bulk of their time in the hospital undergoing non-patient experiences and suffering through ineffective and impersonal processes.  All patients spend most of their time simply as visitors, as customers, as guests of your facility.  Unfortunately, few hospitals spend much time improving those processes that are common to all patients.

To improve in the area of patient experience management, break the person’s experience into two categories; clinical and non-clinical.  While there is merit in reengineering the processes around a hip transplant, doing so does nothing for everyone who did not have a hip transplant.

Over the next several posts I will suggest what can be done to improve the non-clinical patient experience in a way that can change how people view your hospital.

Patient Experience Management

Posted by

0

Have I mentioned I am an unapologetically type A person, for the most part an off the chart Meyers Briggs INTJ? This morning I awoke feeling no more querulous than usual—that would change rather abruptly. In general, I make it a rule never to learn anything before having my first cup of coffee. Unfortunately, today wasn’t going to be one of those days. In fact, my mood was a direct result of the instrument pictured above.

These days I am using this device to make my coffee as my espresso maker’s LED screen is displaying a message telling me my grinder is blocked—sounds a little like something two tablespoons of Pepto should be able to fix, doesn’t it? Google was no help—three hits, each instructing me to send it back to the dealer for a $350 repair. Sounds more like a response you’d get regarding a car, not a coffee maker.

I brought this pot home, a gift from my client in Madrid. It works using the same principles as a pressure cooker. Water is placed in the bottom; an espresso grind goes above the water.  Steam is forced through the grind, past a metal sieve, and into the container where as it cools it is reconstituted as a liquid—coffee. Anyway, as my coffee is cooking, I notice the metal sieve sitting on the counter. It seemed like too much work to turn it off, rinse the pot, regrind the coffee, and wait the additional five minutes. I was too tired for a do-over.

Too bad for me. Now, I’m not sure if what happened next would be found under the topic of fluid mechanics, converting steam into thermal energy, or general explosives, but it would have made for an entertaining physics experiment. In what appeared to play out in slow motion—like the Challenger explosion—actually occurred in a fraction of a second. It seems the metal sieve does more than strain the grinds from the steam. It also prevents a thermonuclear reaction. Apparently when the pressure passes the fail-safe point, the reaction proceeds to the next logical step. That step, which I observed, involves coffee and grinds exiting the pot so rapidly that before I could blink they covered the kitchen walls, counters, and floors as far away as ten feet. (It was actually pretty impressive to watch.) I was informed that once I finish writing about my travails I will be attending to the mess.

The scene reminded me of one of the forensic shows on cable. I halfway expected the medical examiner Dr. Henry Lee to walk through my door to examine the splatter pattern.

The choice I faced was to do it over, or deal with the consequences. I was in a hurry, consequences be damned—it turns out that it wasn’t the consequences that would be damned. My guess is that I’m looking at at least thirty minutes of cleanup work.

It pays to invest the time to do something right the first time—I refer to that as the DIRT-FIT principle; sort of like dealing with patients. Let’s say a certain patient call takes nine minutes to handle correctly. As many of you have observed, there are two ways to go about this. You can do it over a period of several four minute calls because your people don’t want to get dinged for exceeding their handle time allotment, or you can allow the people to talk until the patient’s need is solved.

As patients, we know you prefer the first approach. Patients prefer the second approach.

What my daughter taught me about healthcare IT

Posted by

0

The other night as I’m sitting on a hard bleacher watching my seven-year-olds baseball practice I noticed the mom sitting next to me looking a little forlorn. Being naturally inquisitive, I asked if everything was okay.

“I lost his glove,” she replied.

Noticing a glove on her son’s hand, she saw my look of confusion. “Not his. My husband’s. I had it with me last Thursday, and I left it here.”

“I don’t suppose this was a new glove. Judging by the look on your face I’d say this was his favorite glove, and was probably handed down from his father. Autographed by Mantle and Maris in 1961.  Fifty years old, supple, broken in, fold flat as a sheet of paper.”

“Fifty-five years,” she corrected as she lowered her eyes.

“It’s rained the last three days,” I told her, which caused her to grimace even more. Having nothing better to do, I flayed her emotions. “I bet that glove meant the world to him. He probably planned on giving it to your son in a few years. The glove probably reminds him of the big events in his life, every scar, each stain on the leather, points to something important. You know, if it was outside for a few days, the field mice will have chewed on the leather.”

She brushed away a tear, and headed to the lost and found.

“Any luck?” I asked when she returned.  She shook her head in despair. “In some countries, if a wife does something life that, the husband can sever the relationship, literally,” I said as I made a slashing motion with my hand. She made the briefest of smiles. At least she knew I was pulling her lariat. Reeling her in, I continued.

“You’re not thinking of spending the night at home, are you? If you are, you should at least call someone and let them know of your plans. He’ll heal over time,” I told her. “But he won’t forget it. Twenty years from now the two of you will be watching something on TV, and something will remind him of the glove YOU lost.”

Fast forward to last Wednesday night. My daughter and I are getting out of the car so I can coach her and her softball team in the playoff game.

“Is your glove in the trunk?” I asked. This is after I spent several minutes grilling her at home about whether she had everything she needed for her game.

“I hope so,” she said shamelessly as I popped the trunk for her. “You hope so?” I repeated with an edge in my voice.

“It’s not here Daddy,” she said as she searched the trunk.

I left her with her friends and drove home to look for it. Ten minutes. Nothing. For some reason, I looked in the trunk. There it was. Death by 1,000 cuts.

Does it all come down to baseball gloves?  “I hope so.”  What kind of a response is that?

Will these EHR expenditures improve our operations? I hope so.

Can you confirm for me that Patient Experience Management won’t fall any further? I hope so.

Are we ready for the reform changes coming to the business model?  I hope so.

Will we meet Meaningful Use? I hope so.

Do you think we should continue to employ you? I hope so.

Are Customers Running the Asylum?

Posted by

2

Below is a response I wrote to a blog on customer experience management. I would love to hear what you think. http://www.ceforprofit.com/2010/08/defining-customer-experience-implications-and-all/comment-page-1/#comment-3111

One thing businesses have been slow to realize is they have lost control of the customer conversation, and as such, at least from the customer’s perspective, have forfeited their right to control the customer experience.

Traditional customer relationship management (CRM) has always been a Push.  A manages B.  Organizations manage customers.  Sort of reminds me of cowboys trying to manage a herd of cattle into the cow-pen for slaughter.  Organizations have only been marginally successful at “managing” their customers.

Customer Experience Management (CEM), CRM’s big brother, is at least a thought in the right direction.  However, most firms still do not “get it.”  The ungotten “it” is that customers have taken over the sandbox and they are not going to give it back.  Customers are now managing vendors, and the vendors have yet to figure that out.

Most firms can print a report titled “My customers” or “Our customers.”  The single most important error with these reports is the use of the pronouns ‘my’ and ‘our’.  Firms no longer own customers.  More accurately, customers now hold the power.  Customers now have “My vendor” reports; vendors they have researched and hand-culled.

If a firm wants to check out how well they are managing the customer experience all they have to do is to Google themselves, or search for themselves on YouTube.  See what people are saying about them.  Not much of it is favorable, but much of it is viral.  Videos, blogs, Tweets, and chat rooms.

Manage that?  Too little too late.  Customers are issuing virtual RFPs.  Whether customers want a large screen television or a hip replacement, they go to the web.  They find out your pricing, how well you service your customers.  They make informed decisions.  Most organizations have a long way to go just to get back into the battle to make it a fair fight.  The first step is for them to learn how they are being managed by their customers and then to learn what to do about it.

Who should be able to answer these business questions?

Posted by

0

Now that spring is in full bloom, I’ve been doing a little gardening. My dogs are the anti-gardeners. No sooner do I turn my back after planting something, there they are, happily digging away and ceremoniously digging it up. I don’t know if that’s because they don’t like the particular plant, or just happen to disagree with where I planted it.

Today I discovered the youngest dog uprooted a plant and replaced it with a Reece’s Peanut Butter Cup. Perhaps she wanted to grow a candy tree.

One thing that always confuses me about gardening is this: When I plant a one-gallon shrub, I dig a two-gallon hole. I place the gallon shrub in the two-gallon hole and proceed to fill the remaining one gallon hole with the two gallons of dirt lying next to it. Without fail, there is never enough dirt to fill the hole. Perhaps you can tell me what I am doing wrong.

Here is another area of confusion for me: When you walk or are wheeled into a hospital, neither you nor anyone else knows the answer to anything.

That is astonishing. Nobody can tell you:

* With whom you will interact.
* How long you will stay.
* What will happen to you.
* How it will happen to you.
* When it will happen to you.
* Who will be doing the happening.
* Exactly when it will happen.
* Whether it will need to happen again.
* What it will cost.
* What you will be charged.
* What will be covered.
* How much you will owe.

I am stupefied. How can anyone run a business like this? My daughter knows what her lemonade stand costs per cup. Wendy’s knows the cost of a bag of fries and a large Frosty. Porsche knows the cost of a Cabriolet, the cost of the shift knob, when the wheels will arrive at the factory, when they will be placed on the car, who will build it, who will inspect it, and who will sell it. They can tell you exactly who will touch the car, when they will touch it, and what those people will do to it.

The only thing anyone at a hospital may be able to tell you is whether HBO is billed separately. If I wanted to fly into space with the Russians, I would know the answer to each of those questions. The cost, for example: $50 million.

Why can’t a hospital do this? Because it doesn’t know the answers. It is not because anyone is keeping this information a secret–it’s because they really don’t know. The truly strange thing is that they seem to be okay with not knowing.

Recently, I reconnected with a good friend whom I haven’t seen in years. He is the vice president of finance for a large hospital. He used to be an accountant–a very detailed and precise profession, unless you’re one of the guys who used to do Enron’s books. (The only thing I remember about accounting is that debits are by the window and credits are by the door–if I’m in the wrong room, I’m at a total loss.) This business must drive him nuts!

And so I’ve been wondering; would hospitals be more profitable if:

* They had a P&L by patient?
* They had a P&L per procedure?
* The steps for the same procedure, say a hip replacement, were identical each time?
* They had answers to any of the questions you read above?

Of course they would!

Some areas of healthcare already discovered this tautology–Lasik, endoscopy, the Minute Clinic. Assembly-line medicine. Some people say those words with an expression on their face as though they’d just found a hair in their pasta. The office of my Lasik surgeon looked more impressive than the lobby of my Hyde Park hotel. It may leave a bad taste in the mouth of some, but for others, they are laughing all the way to the bank.

The Patient as Customer

Posted by

0

The headline for a recently published McKinsey survey stated “Ninety percent of hospital CEOs ranked Patient Experience Management (PEM) as their first or second priority over the next three years.

Buried deep within the article was a throw away statement that little will be done regarding PEM because nobody knows who owns the patient.

Any journalism student worth their salt would tell you the real headline for the survey should read something like “Ninety percent of hospital CEOs and COOs do not know who owns the patient at their hospital.”

From a business perspective, in the conversation about patients and PEM one thing is always overlooked.  These people, the patients, also have a business avatar.  They are also customers.  PEM from a business perspective focuses on all the non-clinical aspects of the patients as a customer.

There are dozens of non-clinical processes that affect each customer (patient)—admissions, discharge, billing, scheduling, disputes, claims…

Many of these processes are ineffective and inefficient.  Many are redundant and duplicative.  Many add more cost than value.

If you want to improve the patient experience, look first at these.  You will be surprised by how much better your organization will be perceived.