Healthcare Systems Should Start Thinking "Would You Do That To Your Mother?"

I am honored that best selling author and customer service expert, Jeanne Bliss was “inspired” by my account of a frustrating afternoon I had in a local healthcare system while battling cancer. She contacted me after reading about my experience and asked me if she could share it in her latest book on customer service titled “Would You Do That To Your Mother?” She also wanted to hear what my thoughts were regarding customer service in healthcare. I certainly had some thoughts. My experience had alerted her to the need for improved customer service in healthcare systems and that the principles she has implemented in some of the countries most successful businesses could also be brought to organizations who are selling the service of providing life saving care. The book brilliantly lays out guidelines and principles on how organizations can “Make Mom Proud.” These principles should be the gold standard for any organization, especially in healthcare.

Over the past 20-30 years however, identifying the customer within the healthcare experience has gotten pretty fuzzy. 

One might immediately answer that the customer is obviously the patient, or the person seeking care from the facility but it’s not that easy. You see, the customer is more typically defined as the one who is paying the business for a product or service and that person has become almost exclusively a third party payer or insurance provider. The incentive to pay attention to the experience of the patient, has sadly, fallen out of favor. How do I know this? I have worked in healthcare systems large and small for over 20 years. I have also navigated these same systems as a caregiver for my grandparents, mother and others and most recently had the unexpected pleasure of experiencing healthcare as a patient with a potentially life threatening illness. Jeanne’s principles are desperately needed in healthcare and for those truly revolutionary leaders who want to focus on the patient as the customer, I propose implementations of each principle beginning with:

Be the Person I Raised You to Be

Seems obvious right? If we think back to the principles our mom’s taught us such as “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” and encouraging us to think about how our actions made people around us feel, we know this isn’t a new concept.  Somehow though, it seems to have gotten lost when it comes to dealing with customers or the individuals that are essential to make an organization run. How can healthcare systems in particular follow this principle to improve customer service (again, for this article we are assuming the customer is, in fact, the patient and their family.)

Elevate and value employees. There are loads of studies and evidence to support the fact that when employees feel valued, they are more engaged and this is of utmost importance when actual lives are at stake. I have seen far too often, employees not involved in conversations regarding process improvements or improved delivery of care. I have also been sitting around a table in a staff room with my engaged and innovative colleagues, solving problems large and small only to have those solutions get no further than the very room they were discussed in. Why does this happen? 

Why wouldn’t you seek valuable information from the skilled individuals actually interacting directly with your customer and providing life saving care? 

This is a tremendous missed opportunity to both create a sense of loyalty, engagement and value with employees and actually improve the experience for your customer. This isn’t a threat to leadership rather an enhancement. Most direct patient care professionals really want to work with patients and want to do so in a way that is efficient and that facilitates positive outcomes. They are frustrated when unnecessary obstacles that may be in place and their ideas on how to remove those obstacles too often fall on deaf ears. Include them in on the conversation and let them know they are more than a means of delivering a service or a contributor to a productivity goal. Would you want to be treated like that? Create multidisciplinary problem solving groups where department employees, not managers, nominate who will best represent their collective voice. Let them have some skin in the game and you won’t be disappointed.

 Bring empathy and humanity back to your organization. Make this a cornerstone for the way you treat absolutely everyone from the customer who walks through your door to your employees and any outside vendors or contractors. When designing processes always have a voice representing the potential impact of this process on every human it touches. You need critical thinking, logic leading minds to create efficiency and focus on the bottom line. Don’t forget to counter that with voices considering the human impact and to help weigh the ROI as it relates to positive, negative or neutral impact on your customers and employees. What is the impact on these individuals? What if one of these individuals were your mother? A process may seem efficient or effective when it comes to a financial bottom line but will the impact on care create such a large negative impact that it will ultimately lead to a financial loss? 

Is the additional cost to do things in a way that optimizes the human experience, really too high to pay?

Be honest and admit when you make mistakes. Handle customer complaints in an honest, timely and empathetic manner. Be the example of how to resolve conflict with respect and actionable improvement among staff. Hire the right people that fit the mission of your organization and make it a mission of high integrity and transparency without compromising necessary confidentiality and security. People are overwhelmingly forgiving and apologies are the quickest way to diffuse a tense situation or disgruntled employee. I have seen it happen time and time again when dealing with frustrated patients. Even the act of quietly listening to a complaint without immediate defense, does wonders to de-escalate a potentially volatile situation. You can quickly remedy and even turn around a negative satisfaction review by thinking about how you would want your mother to be treated in the same situation and taking action as such. Wouldn’t you want someone to patiently listen and apologize if something was inadvertently done wrong or to calmly explain a process or procedure? These principles will become an integral part of your culture only if you reinforce them by rewarding the behavior and taking action when it is not exhibited. You can state these guidelines all day long but to make them successful, model the philosophy from leadership to every department in your organization as well as measure your success and stay dedicated to improving your efforts when you aren’t meeting your goals.

I know it might seem a complex task as healthcare has become quite complicated. I wholeheartedly believe it can be done and must be done for healthcare to be successfully provided in this country. I have faith there are leaders out there who are willing to roll up their sleeves and do the hard work necessary to make mom proud. 

Michelle Chaffee Founder & CEO alska