I keeping with my tradition on writing stuff and sharing it with you I would like to offer this rant.  Enjoy.

Time and Customer Service
            Ever think back on a great customer service experience?  No, well try right now…..nice wasn’t it.  Chances are you didn’t think about a hospital or a clinic.  When I am asked to do this exercise I usually think about some really great shop or coffee house.  What makes those shops seem so great?  I mean, you are just going in for a cup of coffee, right?  Why should some one go out of their way for one shop rather than the other?  Well I have a theory.  Time.  Yep, the time that the staff spends with you makes the difference.  Ever been rushed off your table at a really good and trendy restaurant?  I have and let me tell you that it did affect my perception of that place.  Hey the food may have been wonderful, but you will remember the snotty waiter rushing you out long after the taste of the food has faded.  But do you remember when that salesman took the time to answer all your questions with a smile.  You may have even purchased something from them, which is the retail idea anyway.  The same goes with the perception of the quality of medical care that our patients experience.  But what are we selling?  Information.

Let’s not kid each other on the fact that we see over twenty thousand patients a month, most of them in fifteen minute slots.  Not a lot of time allocated and really no way to make more time.  But as I have heard our Commander state many times, that is just a part of the visit.  Our patients see clerks, nurses, medical record techs, lab techs, x-ray techs, house keepers, and whole lot of other folks beside their provider every time they come in.  Our patients have questions; we the staff have the answers, so why don’t we tell them?  Don’t we have enough time?  This is what I hear from our patients often.  “The _____ did not seem to want to take the time to explain the ______ to me.”  So what do I do as the Patient Representative Officer?  I explain it.  Ok. You could say that is my job, and please do not get me wrong – I love it, but wouldn’t all of our jobs be easier if our patients thought that we weren’t “rushing them off the table”? So what do you do?  Here is my new Patient Representative Office motto:

Take time to care
            Pretty good, huh?  “But Chris, I am so busy can’t take time to care” Well I would ask, are you really?  How much time do you spend at work doing “non-work” stuff? Hey I know I do and that’s ok as long as the patients come first.  So what am I asking you to do? The 120 second rule.  Try this:  think about a policy that we have here at MEDDAC and time yourself explaining it.  I bet you finish before 120 seconds (two minutes), in fact most of our policies, rules and regulations can be explained in great detail in under a minute.  And I am not suggesting that you rush either, really explain the WHY of the policy.  Our patients are smarter than you think and if they have had a proper explanation they may not even be upset.  But way too often we simple state “well that’s our policy” and that’s it. 

The Challenge
Try this for a month.  Yep, for one month any time a patient asks you a question take about 120 seconds and answer the question as fully as you know.  See what happens.  I wager that you will build a loyalty with that patient that they will remember.

Christopher H. Lowery
Patient Representative Officer
USA MEDDAC, Ft. Drum NY
(315) 772-4655

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Do not release without permission of the Commander.