I just share this one portion of a cancer patient’s blog as she tells her journey.
She was astounded at apparent inept systems at the hospital where she was getting chemo. Mind you, she’s been in this routine for weeks but upon entering the hospital for the now-routine therapy, here’s what she experienced:
We were able to make it to the hospital which I was scheduled to get my chemo around 5 pm. First they made us wait at the lobby. Then I had to go and do the new patient registration .. oh c’mon I thought don’t you guys have a central database that they could pull from the oncologists office ? After all it is the same hospital !
The hospital had its rules and systems, even if they required the patient to register all over again due to the installation of the new registration system. That might be necessary. And the patient went along with the ordeal. But her blog shows just how far apart were her expectations from the actual experience.
It points to yet another opportunity for technology to do a better job of making the patient experience (read that as customer experience) more in line with expectations. Is it unreasonable to expect a doctor who works within the hospital to have his patient registration system aligned/integrated with the hospital’s patient access systems?
Filed Under: Patient Experience
About the Author
From sports journalist to editor of an international trade magazine to Marketing Director for 3 companies before founding WBK Marketing, eventually one of the 50 largest promotional marketing agencies in America. Dale has pioneered "contextual marketing" for successful brands at P&G, Pepsi, Disney, Toshiba, Compaq, Imation, 3M and many regional hospitals and healthcare insurers.
“From my days in college as a pre-med student and working as a transporter for Christ Hospital in Cincinnati, to developing marketing programs for hospitals and health insurers, I have always had a passion for how science and medicine can help bring sick people back to health. Hospitals are incredibly complex organizations, with two large clinical teams (doctors and nurses) and many highly skilled specialists and therapists. There are times when various groups working in medical centers have opposing view points that can lead to dissonance, which at the extreme can potentially impair patient safety and quality outcomes. The work we do at Compass Clinical Consulting guides many of these hospitals through contentious issues, process failure or breakdown with a negative impact on financial stability. Our department of education and information services has been assembled to produce high-value content for hospital leaders. Our goal is to help these leaders transform their organizations into better hospitals by reducing the cost of delivering safe, quality healthcare.”
Dale has been an active blogger since 2004 when he launched The Perfect Customer Experience (www.perfectcem.com); recently recognized as one of Top 20 CRM blogs and on healthcare improvement (www.better-hospitals.com) where we now communicate about issues that impact making better American hospitals.
Case studies to learn more about ways in which Compass Clinical has worked to create better American hospitals.