An imaging department’s
approach to service excellence, patient
satisfaction, and/or patient engagement
scores is critical for a successful operation.
Many times, we want the customer
to change so we can meet their needs.
But they aren’t changing so we can meet
their needs, they’re changing so they can
meet our needs. One of the best ways to
figure out what they do want is through
patient satisfaction surveys, which really
are valuable. Sometimes these surveys are
referred to as the Voice of the Customer
(VoC), a Lean Six Sigma term. This tool
gives patients the opportunity to fill in
circles, but most importantly it gives
them an opportunity to write comments.
The circles are nice, but those comments
are invaluable. Outlined here is a step by
step process that Clark Memorial Hospital
in Jeffersonville, IN, a 241 bed facility,
went through to arrive at an experience
that patients said they wanted.
Clark Memorial Hospital has been
tracking customer service scores for
several years, just like most other facilities.
The scores were always good. Then
other organizations started focusing on
their patient satisfaction scores and our
percentile ranking dropped. We had the
group who said, “Oh yes, but our mean
score is the same as it was, so let’s use the
mean score and not the percentile ranking.”
This was very tempting, but not the
right thing to do. So what should be done
to improve scores if everyone else’s percentile
is improving? The first obvious
track to take was to discredit the survey
itself. The questions weren’t appropriate;
the questions should be weighted
to better show how the experience was
on the clinical side. That seemed realistic.
If those things were done then the
process doesn’t have to change and the
score will be better. The patient’s experience
will be the same, but the hospital’s
score would be better. That’s not what
we really wanted to achieve, though, as
we really wanted the patient’s experience
to improve. So a Process Improvement
Team was formed.