Do you have a signature birthday Experience for your team members and patients?

Creating a more personal health care Experience is at the top of most health care executives’ strategic priorities and yet this simple Experience element -- honoring someone’s birthday--is too frequently missed. Which is funny, because date of birth is the one piece of information we consistently have at our fingertips.

While flying on Delta Airlines today, I was reminded of one of my earliest lessons on this 20-year journey of designing a more meaningful and memorable health care Experience. Today is my birthday and while settling into my seat on the plane I heard someone call my name. I looked to the aisle and it was the flight attendant. She enthusiastically said “Happy Birthday Sonia! My name is Rebecca and I’m here to make your birthday even better than it already is. May I get you anything?”  

It’s lovely isn’t it? A small, thoughtful gesture that put a smile on my face. There really is nothing better than being remembered on your day.

In 1999, when I set out on my quest to transform the health care Experience, I sought out Joe Pine and Jim Gilmore authors of game-changing book The Experience Economy, to learn everything I could about Experience Design and apply that to our health care organization. Early on in our friendship, Joe shared a health care story from his childhood that I’ve shared repeatedly to help health care leaders understand that a more personal Experience can be simple – it doesn’t take heroics.

When Joe was a boy, he broke his leg in a bike accident and ended up an inpatient. Unfortunately, Joe’s injury meant he would spend his birthday in a hospital bed. When he awoke the morning of his birthday, he was filled with anticipation for what a birthday in the hospital would be like. Each time his door opened he wondered if it would be a joyful round of “Happy Birthday” or a balloon or maybe a cupcake. Instead, each time the door opened his heart sank. Caregiver after caregiver entered his room and went through their usual routine. Checking vitals. Delivering a meal. Cleaning the room. Changing a dressing. No “Happy Birthday.” It wasn’t until his mom arrived with a cake and all the festivities that someone wished Joe a happy birthday in that hospital. 

Date of Birth is the ONE personal data element we have ready access to–a data element we use time and time again throughout the interactions we have with our patients. The question isn’t whether we have access to a vital piece of personal information – it’s whether we have intentionally designed our systems, structures, and signature Experiences to make something meaningful with the data we have. Through sharing Joe’s story with Experience Lab partners, wonderful birthday signature Experiences have been designed. Health care systems have created alerts and pop-ups in the electronic health record (EHR) to ensure team members are aware of a patient birthday and caregivers have perfected the birthday action kit for each unit or clinic to be able to create a lasting birthday memory.

Delta is a wonderful exemplar of what it means to ASK for a key piece of data. REMEMBER that data through a remembering system. And then DO something that matters with that data.

Do you have a signature birthday Experience? Are you ASKING, REMEMBERING, and DOING something memorable with the information you have? If not, let's commit to making birthdays in the hospital or medical office something wonderful.