Great lab tech. Caring nurse. Experienced social worker. We want these people taking care of us. What makes a skilled health care worker these days is no longer wholly defined by technical abilities. The “bedside manner” of the past, however, is finding resurgence in hospitals and clinics throughout the nation.
Recently, this publication’s managing editor related her less than stellar experiences during several doctor’s office visits. In fact, she questioned how we can best prepare health care workers in customer service.
Indeed, workforce development stands at a crossroads. Even with skyrocketing costs for new technology, better diagnostic tests and miracle drugs, the most basic of human care lags. No question that health care personnel seem stretched. With increasing paperwork (or computer entry) based upon government and insurance requirements, the actual time spent with patients has been declining for years.
If you’re hearing this as “excuses, excuses,” you are right. At Southwest Washington Medical Center, the leadership team recognized the significant gap in our service levels. And, we committed to doing something about the issue.
Southwest actually has surveyed our patients (those who stay overnight or use our ER) for several years. The results have never been glaringly bad. On the other hand, in light of great work underway nationally to increase patient satisfaction, we weren’t necessarily getting much better. Is being average good enough?
It starts with leadership. According to a national leader in operational excellence, Quint Studer, “Reducing leadership variance lies at the very heart of creating a consistent culture of excellence.”
Now back to that nurse and great lab tech that you want caring for you. They are often the folks who ascend to leadership roles in health care. Their positive approach gets them noticed. They get promoted. And, then what? Not usually a great leadership development curriculum that teaches them to mentor, coach and improve performance among their staff members. Yet, at Southwest, the heart of our workforce development has become focused on leadership practices.
We’re implementing tools related to communications, recognizing achievement, understanding measures of performance and employee selection. For example, leaders are held accountable for touching base (we call this rounding) at least monthly with each staff member to see what is going well, give feedback, answer tough questions or rumors, and check to see if equipment is working. To quote Studer, “Rounding is all about gathering information in a structured way. It’s proactive, not reactive. It’s a way to get a handle on problems before they occur and also to reinforce positive and profitable behaviors.”
We understand that the experiences our patients and families have with everyone, from telephone operators to certified nursing assistants, are what define us in the minds of the community. Being consistent doesn’t come easily. Always introducing ourselves and explaining tests and procedures isn’t difficult. In fact, most of our work in service is about coaching and setting expectations. Fairly simple stuff.
As the saying goes, “If you allow it, you promote it.” As we bring consistency in expectations across all of our health services, we’re encouraged to see our survey results climbing. The simple stuff isn’t really that easy to make consistent, yet building a workforce with a service focus is one on our list of 10 top strategies.
