by Daniyel McAlvey
What an honor it is to share Carson City Hospital's (CCH) journey to success for patient experiences. One key driver to achieving patient satisfaction, in my opinion, is having a hospital board, along with the hospital's executive team, behind the concept that you are in for a long journey; changes can't happen overnight. I can honestly say without hesitation that CCH has this kind of support. The board of directors who govern over the hospital, as well as our executive team members, see the importance of our patient experiences.
When I was hired three years ago as the Service Excellence Manager I started out slow. It was very important to educate and help staff become familiar with the fact that we are graded on our performance by our patients, and what the patients feel and or say matters. Education began by reviewing surveys, looking at where we are when benchmarked, and where we want to be. Managers were encouraged to read Hardwiring Excellence by Quint Studer--a great book! We didn't adopt all of Studer's best practices but have picked a few we felt would work well in our organization.
In 2010 I was commissioned by our hospital board and executive team to create a customer service program. I created "Creating Exceptional Experiences," a training session that was mandatory for all associates to attend. This had never been done at CCH. I was able to complete the training in six and half months with 500+ associates.
During the session I hit on body language, professionalism, expectations, choosing to be positive, the impact of your attitude, walking in the patients' shoes, phone etiquette, and other great topics. At the end of the session we made a commitment in writing which signified that we were all in this together as we moved forward. At about this same time CCH was rolling out High-Middle-Low evaluations and the new pay-for-performance initiative. We were no longer going to have across the board raises.
Below I have listed, in random order, most all of the initiatives that have taken place within the last two years that have helped CCH provide our patients with a positive hospital experience.
- Embrace Studer methodologies
- Become familiar with our patient surveys
- Review patient satisfaction data monthly
- Partake in Creating Exceptional Experiences (CEE) class
- Set patient satisfaction goals
- Review Voice of the Patient--comments that patients make on the survey
- Submit quarterly reports to Hospital Board and Board Quality
- Install white boards in patient room--listing nurse, doctor, tech, dietary number, date, etc.
- Send thank-you notes to patients for utilizing our services
- Send thank-you notes to staff
- Distribute All For One-One For All three-ply reward and recognition forms
- Follow AIDET standard for communicating with customers
- Hold new-hire orientation--CEE session
- Conduct behavioral-based interviews
- Perform staff rounding
- Perform patient rounding
- Deliver key messages at key times
- Develop Working Action Plans--patient satisfaction driven
- Hold bi-weekly and monthly meetings with managers
- Employ process mapping
- Employ patient experience mapping
- Celebrate success!
When I started my career at CCH our patient satisfaction scores were not where they needed to be; we were scoring as an average hospital. However, if we keep performing the way we have been in 2011, (which I have no doubts that we will), we shouldn't have any trouble hitting our goals!
Now for the hard part ... consistency. Be consistent with your message and be diligent in moving forward. We all know that the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services and healthcare reform have changed the way we look at our patient experiences. This isn't going away. Keeping a pulse on the changes and expectations is very important, so that you know you are leveraging your organization for success.
So much hard work has taken place at CCH over the past two years. I am so very proud of where we are. One thing that cannot go unmentioned, CCH has a wonderfully dedicated staff. I would say the secret ingredient for success is that we are all on the same page and understand our organizational goals and expectations. Our board of directors, executive team, providers, and associates all see the big picture ... it is about the customer!
If you should have any questions regarding our journey feel free to contact me at dmcalvey@carsoncityhospital.com.
Daniyel McAlvey is the Service Excellence Manager at Carson City Hospital in Michigan.
by Daniyel McAlvey
When I was hired three years ago as the Service Excellence Manager I started out slow. It was very important to educate and help staff become familiar with the fact that we are graded on our performance by our patients, and what the patients feel and or say matters. Education began by reviewing surveys, looking at where we are when benchmarked, and where we want to be. Managers were encouraged to read Hardwiring Excellence by Quint Studer--a great book! We didn't adopt all of Studer's best practices but have picked a few we felt would work well in our organization.
In 2010 I was commissioned by our hospital board and executive team to create a customer service program. I created "Creating Exceptional Experiences," a training session that was mandatory for all associates to attend. This had never been done at CCH. I was able to complete the training in six and half months with 500+ associates.
During the session I hit on body language, professionalism, expectations, choosing to be positive, the impact of your attitude, walking in the patients' shoes, phone etiquette, and other great topics. At the end of the session we made a commitment in writing which signified that we were all in this together as we moved forward. At about this same time CCH was rolling out High-Middle-Low evaluations and the new pay-for-performance initiative. We were no longer going to have across the board raises.
Below I have listed, in random order, most all of the initiatives that have taken place within the last two years that have helped CCH provide our patients with a positive hospital experience.
When I started my career at CCH our patient satisfaction scores were not where they needed to be; we were scoring as an average hospital. However, if we keep performing the way we have been in 2011, (which I have no doubts that we will), we shouldn't have any trouble hitting our goals!
Now for the hard part ... consistency. Be consistent with your message and be diligent in moving forward. We all know that the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services and healthcare reform have changed the way we look at our patient experiences. This isn't going away. Keeping a pulse on the changes and expectations is very important, so that you know you are leveraging your organization for success.
So much hard work has taken place at CCH over the past two years. I am so very proud of where we are. One thing that cannot go unmentioned, CCH has a wonderfully dedicated staff. I would say the secret ingredient for success is that we are all on the same page and understand our organizational goals and expectations. Our board of directors, executive team, providers, and associates all see the big picture ... it is about the customer!
If you should have any questions regarding our journey feel free to contact me at dmcalvey@carsoncityhospital.com.
Daniyel McAlvey is the Service Excellence Manager at Carson City Hospital in Michigan.