If you or someone you know has ever stayed at a Ritz-Carlton hotel, you know that the personalized experience is so good that it can sometimes border on the eerie. Everything is calculated to make each guest's experience memorable and unforgettable. Every employee throughout the facility seems to know who you are and why you are there. If for some reason they are unable to meet your needs, they seem to spend the rest of your stay trying to make up for it with delicious cookies, a personalized note, a visit from management or some other treatment that only royalty would or could expect.

This kind of attention certainly makes guests feel extra special and goes a long way toward encouraging repeat business, which, of course, is the ultimate goal. The aim of the Ritz-Carlton organization is to create "guests for life."

Granted, the Ritz-Carlton doesn't have hospital beds and their guests don't require medical treatment. However, health care facilities have much to learn from a company like Ritz-Carlton that makes customer service its No. 1 priority.

At first, customer service and health care might strike you as a strange combination. You may in fact be wondering whether health care should try to emulate a luxury resort in terms of this level of attention to customer service. You may question whether a field that relies on such tools as hard fluoroscopy tables, bottles of barium and enema bags can generate a measurably more pleasant experience for patients and customers.

Of course it can--it's all in the way in which the experience is handled by the health care provider. Every interaction, from the time the patient walks through the door to the time she walks out, is in the hands of the many people that make an organization work on a daily basis. Indeed, people are the heart of any organization; if the heart is weak, the organization's service will also be weak.

But as the old saying goes, "What does not get measured does not get improved." Patient satisfaction surveys can help your facility determine the strengths and weaknesses of its heart when it comes to meeting or exceeding the needs of your patients.

Many scholarly articles have been written extolling the virtues of patient satisfaction surveys as tools to help health care institutions to provide total patient satisfaction.¹ In fact, the use of polling companies to measure customer/patient satisfaction is increasing among health care facilities across the U.S.²There are multiple reasons for this, not the least of which is that today's patients are more informed than ever due to the accessibility of information through the media and the Internet. In addition, hospitals increasingly are owned by large corporations, and a "profit" is essential to the health of any business, whether a "for- profit" or "non-profit" organization.

As a result, hospitals are competing with each other for patient loyalty. Repeat customers and positive word-of-mouth "advertising" are absolute musts for the financial stability of any organization, including health care facilities. Unfortunately, such feedback can't always be counted on in today's environment.

Consider that a patient's overall experience in a health care facility hinges on many smaller experiences that ultimately can either create a "wow!" feeling in that patient or cause her simply never to return. Take radiology, for example. The patient initially sees her doctor, who gives her a prescription for, say, a small bowel exam. The patient must then go through the scheduling department to make an appointment; come to the hospital on the day of the exam and find a place to park (certainly no trouble-free task at many institutions). They must then find the proper place to check in for their exam. Some patients arrive one or two hours early, hoping they will be taken faster.

At this point the exam must be explained to the patient; the health care professional must explain the procedure to the patient carefully; the procedure itself is, or should be, performed competently, quickly and with as little discomfort as possible. From the technologist's perspective, the patient has been treated with care and kindness.

But is that really true?

For example, that patient who visited radiology for a small bowel exam may be expecting a simple exam that takes but a few minutes, not a complex one that can take several hours. As a result, their opinion of the care they received can be quite different from that of the technologist, depending on whether they were instructed properly in the first place that the exam could take all day.

Many people, having had such an experience, won't complain if they receive what, in their view, amounts to poor service or health care. Instead, they are more likely to simply not return to the facility in the future. They're also more likely to tell others about their bad experience at the facility: "The test took a long time," they may say, or "I couldn't find parking," "the personnel were not friendly," "It was cold,"--the list goes on.

Fortunately, companies that provide patient satisfaction survey services can help your facility to identify what it's doing well and what it needs to improve. This leads to such benefits as reducing the likelihood of unnecessary legal action for perceived "medical errors" or low quality care, and the ability to reinforce good behavior or address problems quickly. Some companies even offer to measure patient loyalty because "this is statistically linked to financial and growth metrics and overall sustainability."

These results offer leadership the ability to understand areas of importance that need to be addressed³ and help to make changes that have significant impact on patient satisfaction.

Health care employees need to adapt to the changes and the higher expectations of today's environment and patients. The purpose of patient surveys is to help leadership identify what areas need improvement according to the patient's perception, whether it's the courtesy of the staff, concern for the patient's comfort or even just the length of the wait in the radiology department.

But simply posting the survey reports and mentioning some of the unsatisfactory responses in meetings are not enough. Based on the results of any survey, leadership and staff must both take a stand to exceed expectations and create that "wow!" feeling among patients. They must decide on an approach to patient care that both engages employees and encourages them to provide competent care with a smile, and keeps patients and physicians coming back to the institution. Research shows a high correlation between happy, engaged employees and high patient satisfaction scores.

Patient satisfaction surveys validate a job well done and reveal areas for improvement. Regardless of the complexity that goes into measuring patient satisfaction, it must be done to stay ahead of the competition.

References

1. Yunhwan, L., et al. (1997). Assessment of Medical Care by Elderly People: General Satisfaction and Physician Quality, Health Services Research, March 25.

2. "What Do You Think This Is, A Hotel? Teaching Customer Service Skills in Health care. (1999). Kalfas, S., VP of Customer Service Training and Consulting with Sodexho Marriott Services. Press Ganey, The Satisfaction Monitor, May/June.

3. "Patient Quality System," Gallup Health care Group, accessed 10/14/07 via http://health care.gallup.com/content/default.aspx?CI=21418

Jorge A. Casañas, MEd, RT(R)(CV)(QM), is a radiology supervisor at South Miami Hospital and an adjunct faculty professor at Miami Dade College Medical Center Campus. Robert Cossio AS, RT(R), is a radiographer at Baptist Hospital in Miami.