What hospitality can learn from hospitals - from my personal experience

Last week, I spent almost a week in the hospital. It was unexpected for both my wife and I. Lesson learnt: Do not take health for granted!

On the bright side, I received flowers for the first time in my life. Special thanks to my amazing colleagues who checked in on me, and covered for me. As a hotelier inside and out, I can’t help but notice the similarities between healthcare and hospitality.?

Hospitals, like hotels, provide accommodation and services to guests/patients.?

In fact, hospitals have been trying to learn from hotels to take better care of patients.

What can hotels learn from hospitals? Here are my observations:

#1. Highly personal and compelling storytelling

Hospitals in Singapore have engaged renowned chef Sam Leong to design their menus.?

The hospital, that I was admitted in, was showing this video on loop.?

The video showed how chef Sam was diagnosed with stage four nose cancer in 2016. He eventually recovered, and now his experience is helping to inspire his mission to bring flavour back to hospital food.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3r61x2cqCnc

This was very relatable to me as a patient. +1 for branding storytelling.

#2. Over celebrating and recognising staff?

In hotels and restaurants, it is not uncommon to recognise the employee of the month.

In this hospital, they have many different categories so the staff members have plenty of chances to be recognised: Best patient care, Most attentive, Warmest smile etc.?

And all these are prominently displayed in public areas.

Perhaps it wouldn’t hurt for us in hospitality to recognise our staff more.

#3. Tailored customer experience

Hotels’ front of house training is usually centred around brand standards and guidelines.

From my experience, my doctor spoke to an elderly patient in English with a mix of Chinese dialect. He went on to speak to the other Singaporean patient in Singlish (Singaporean English).?

And when he got to me, he spoke in perfect English. My wife did a search on him and found out that he is one of the leading experts in his field.

Instead of being constrained to strict brand guidelines: while his brand was being a medical expert, he tailored his delivery to fit his audience. And from what I see, his delivery is well received.?

Sometimes, people follow brand standards with no flexibility, and we lose the human element of what hospitality should embody.

I hope you find these interesting like me. I would love to hear what your thoughts are.

Stay healthy everyone!