From Fumble to Flourish: Service Recovery in Healthcare
As healthcare professionals, we strive to deliver a perfect experience with every single patient encounter. Unfortunately, the simple truth is that in healthcare, just like in every industry, this isn’t always possible. Actually, it’s even more difficult to achieve in our industry because healthcare is so incredibly personal.
Let’s agree that because you’ll never achieve perfect patient interactions 100% of the time, failure is inevitable. If we agree that failure is inevitable, the next step is addressing how to overcome that failure. That’s where service recovery comes in.
According to the National Institute of Health, service recovery is defined as “that part of quality management designed to alter the negative perceptions of dissatisfied consumers and to ultimately maintain a business relationship with these consumers.” My definition is a bit more succinct: service recovery is addressing your patient’s complaint to make sure they stay loyal to you.
Why is Service Recovery Important?
How many times have you been hankering for a Diet Coke, decided to go through the McDonald’s drive-thru, and gotten stuck in line for 25 minutes during a shift change that makes you run late for picking up the kids? You vow to never go back to that restaurant, and they lose out on your future food spend... in this case it's a whopping $1.97.
If one of your unhappy patients left your organization, you stand to lose out on the rest of their healthcare spend. With the average lifetime value of a patient being $1.2 million, every single lost patient directly affects your bottom line.
That disgruntled patient will also share their experience with other people. Now back in the analog days (I'm pulling my pants up higher and yelling at kids on the lawn as I type this ??), they would tell ten people about their bad experience while only sharing the good experience with three people. In today's digital world, patients will tell those same ten people but also share their experiences online, with an average review being seen by around 2,000 people!
What To Do About It?
Many health systems don’t have a formal service recovery process to listen to and collect feedback from their patients, which is a huge mistake. The typical reasons given are:
The dichotomy of this is that almost every health system has a mission statement and values that state something about providing excellent care and putting the patient first, but not taking the opportunity to listen to those patient voices flies directly in the face of that mission. Here’s a simple framework to get started:
1.????? Getting Buy-in from Leadership - Service recovery is not easy, and it will require additional work. If leadership is on board, there is a a much better chance that the program won't be abandoned when the first few negative comments come through. Leadership is should be vested in this because a solid service recovery program positively affects the bottom line by increasing patient acquisition and loyalty… it’s also simply the right thing to do.
2.????? Start Listening - There are two times when it’s vitally important to listen to the patient: during the encounter and immediately following the encounter. Standardize nurse and leader rounding to get patient feedback during their stay and follow up with every single patient within 48 hours of discharge.
3.????? Respond to the Complaint – There’s nothing worse than taking your time to provide feedback to an organization and not even getting a response, let alone addressing their concern. Sometimes the feedback is about parking or hours or appointment availability. Many of these issues can be responded to automatically using Generative AI tools so staff can focus on other areas of concern. Others are more nuanced in nature and require some empathy. Whatever the issue, respond. Every time. And give your staff the autonomy and power to address items on their own, in the moment.
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4.????? Fix the Issue – Some things can’t be fixed, like if they complain about parking at a hospital in downtown New York, but you can respond to it by recommending different places to park, recommending they use Uber, or maybe even offering a car service. Other issues may be more personal: their doctor only spent three minutes with them, the check-in person was rude, or they weren’t given proper discharge instructions. How you respond is a golden opportunity to turn detractors into promoters, as 96% of complaints are focused on customer service issues, not clinical issues.
5.????? Categorize the Complaints – In short order, you’ll start to see trends. Maybe when setting an appointment, the patient is forced into voicemail hell. Maybe they wait in the exam room for an hour to see a doctor. It could be they aren’t sure about where to get medications. Categorizing and tracking these issues will highlight areas of potential focus.
6.????? Improve Processes - Whatever repeated issues arise, use these to improve processes. This is where the real value of service recovery comes in, as your team can start eliminating potential issues for all patients.
Complaints Are an Opportunity
In customer service, there is a phenomenon called the “Service Recovery Paradox”, which states that consumers feel better about an organization after they’ve solved a problem than if there was no issue in the first place. The psychological reason for this is that the consumer was able to get the issue off their chest and the company actually listened to them. They were able to address the basic human need to feel heard, creating a deeper connection and increasing loyalty.
And think about how great THAT story will be when they share it with thousands of people online!
Up in Smoke
There's been a lot of noise by the Federal Government in the last few years to reclassify marijuana as a Schedule III drug. This will have impacts on taxation, criminal charges, and healthcare, according to CNBC.
Currently, marijuana is legal for recreational use in 24 states and for medicinal use in 41 states. Health system CEOs and Boards need to have proactive discussions about how where they stand on the usage of, and maybe even prescribing of, cannabis for their patients and staff.
Weed by the Numbers
Patient Experience Leader
6 个月Wonderful points. Many of these would also allievate the volume of formal grievances many organizations struggle with. My team saw a big change when we tracked all complaints that came in regardless of how we received them. You can see a lot of trends easily emerge and we were able to take them back to our committee of engaged leadership to address them. Also great to track the compliments as well!
Healthcare Marketing Consultant I Medical Writer I Disability Advocate | Wife of a Disabled Vet.
7 个月Bil, this is a great article. Health systems need to do a better job of creating listening channels for patients. Patients want to feel heard and have their concerns addressed. Patient feedback should go beyond a star rating system but encompass real active listening initiatives as part of the care plan.
Partnering with leading healthcare systems and hospitals to listen, understand, and improve through Human Understanding
7 个月Hi Bil, this is a great reminder about the power of service recovery in healthcare. Taking proactive steps to ensure you're following up with everyone, and responding to negative feedback left either on your sites or those of 3rd parties are great steps in the process!