Column: Medical center assesses customer satisfaction
Published 12:00 am Friday, March 21, 2008
By Mark R. Ciota, Hometown Health
Health care today focuses on not only about providing you with the highest levels of quality, service and safety, but measuring how we&8217;re doing in those areas by asking you to complete patient satisfaction surveys or patient comment cards.
If you&8217;ve ever wondered whether it&8217;s worth your time to complete our surveys and what we do with the information, I would like to explain how seriously we take your responses.
One of our strategic goals is to improve customer and staff satisfaction. To improve, we have to know how we&8217;re doing right now by assessing the level of patient satisfaction in our various facilities and departments. We measure things like communication with nurses, communication with doctors, cleanliness of hospital environment, pain management, discharge information and willingness to recommend.
When survey information is compiled, any of our areas with less than 90 percent of satisfied patients must develop a specific service improvement plan based on patient feedback that we measure monthly. Those areas that make changes that increase patient satisfaction scores are recognized for their positive efforts and those who do not are provided additional department or one-on-one service training.
This year we are implementing a new service training program for all staff designed to improve communication among patients, families and staff that we hope will increase patient satisfaction in all areas of Albert Lea Medical Center.
By the end of March this year, many of our patient satisfaction scores will be published on www.hospitalscompare.hhs.gov. Not only will you find how we&8217;re rated, but how our scores compare to other health care organizations. Health care consumers who like to shop around before choosing a provider or health care organization, will find this information especially helpful. The questions include the measurements above and reflect the percentage of people who respond always to how often they are satisfied with the cleanliness of our hospital or our discharge instructions. etc.
We think our scores are good, but not great. We want all &8220;A&8217;s&8221; on our report cart. And how do we do that? We continue to add service improvements like training, service recovery, effective communication and just treat people they way we&8217;d like to be treated.
So what do you think? How would you rate us? Your opinion counts. Just let me know by e-mailing me at ceo@almedcenter.org.
We now also have online options where you can respond at www.almedcenter.org by clicking &8220;Ask the CEO&8221; or &8220;Patient Feedback.&8221;
Mark R. Ciota, M.D., is CEO of Albert Lea Medical Center. For comments to Dr. Ciota, please e-mail him at almcceo@mayo.edu.