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Learn
to love complaints.
Six
out of seven patients who should complain, do not―they silently take
their business elsewhere and you may never know it. The one in seven who does
complain is saying, “If only you would correct the situation, I would
like to continue doing business with you.” Open up to what that patient
has to say and you could make a “customer” for life.
Very
often, the first step in establishing a patient Complaints Management
System is changing the organization’s culture regarding complaints,
beginning with the philosophy of top management. How do your executives
regard complaints? As a pain in the neck―or as a golden opportunity
to improve your organization? Increasing the number of complaints you
collect does not mean deliberately lowering quality―it’s about
identifying patient/customer problems that already exist and resolving
them so as to not reoccur. When you assure that a problem does not recur,
you are taking care of all your existing and future patients’ concerns
as well.
Patient
complaints offer two opportunities. First, each complaint is an
opportunity to satisfy a patient with your positive response to the
complaint. And second,
complaints are a readily-available source of requirements that you can use
to set objectives for a systematic improvement program.
A
systematic approach to complaints is essential to a payoff.
A Complaint Management System should meet three goals:
1.
Capture
all complaints.
Employ
multiple avenues to make it easy for patients to get their issues funneled
into the system: a toll-free hotline, a Web form, or a questionnaire
that's included with discharge papers, as examples. Enlist all
“patient-facing” staff to help vacuum up complaints throughout the
organization by encouraging them to solicit patients for problems. Once
captured, the complaints need to be collected in a single repository and
analyzed to identify which complaint categories are priority improvement
opportunities. Develop a complaint database to identify trends and
generate regular reports to hospital management and staff. Over time,
track trends and use the information to improve service processes and
minimize future complaints.
2.
Quickly
resolve complaints to the patient’s satisfaction.
Patients
who have had their problems satisfactorily and quickly solved often tell
their friends and neighbors. And they are not easily won over by the
competition, rewarding healthcare organizations that quickly solve
problems by remaining loyal patients:
a speedy response can add 25 percent to patient loyalty. Resolving
patient complaints makes for a healthier bottom line, as the cost to
“replace” a current patient can be 10 times the cost of keeping them.
Establish a team of representatives to handle complaints, ensuring that
each team members has the authority to solve the patient's issue in a way
that satisfies the patient.
3.
Identify
root causes of complaints to eliminate recurrence.
Use
patient complaints to locate issues that are most important to your
patients. This ensures that problems are prevented in the future so that
performance continuously improves and exceeds
patient expectations. Analyze each complaint in the context of the bigger
picture of your organization’s business processes, identify the root
cause of the problem, and then implement changes in the appropriate
process that result in permanent improvements. This way you not only
satisfy that one patient, you ensure the satisfaction of all
your patients going forward, a tactic sure to improve the bottom line.
Another
Key Point: admitting physicians are “customers” too!
Admitting physicians and
staff are professionals who can also impact the bottom-line. If enough
admitting physicians get fed up with problems and unheard complaints about
your organization, they may have other options and take their business
elsewhere—a competing hospital or specialty clinic. These unresolved
issues have pushed the emergence of specialty clinics and medical
practices that take a large bite out of hospital revenues.
Summary
When staff know that executive management is focused on doing a good job
for the patient rather than on finding someone to blame for problems, they
concentrate on the serving the patient. It may take time to change the
ingrained negative feelings towards complaints; however, the payoffs in
improved quality, decreased costs from “having to do it over,” as well
as increased patient loyalty and confidence over the long run are well
worth the time, effort and nurturing required.
When you look at
complaints as a way to dig out the root causes of problems that cause
patients (and even physicians or other key staff) to get their needs met
elsewhere, then you’ll see the golden lining inside those dark clouds of
complaints and seek them out.
About
Shaw Resources:
The Shaw complaint management system has been proven over the last 17
years within complex, service-oriented organizations, creating relatively
inexpensive improvements that show dramatic results in increased patient
satisfaction/loyalty and cost savings across the board.
Shaw
Resources was formed in 1990 to provide leading edge process improvement
methods to high touch, service organizations. Shaw developed and provides
clients with a proprietary, patented Customer-Inspired® methodology that
is optimized for complex service organizations. This methodology is
described, in part, in the book "Customer-Inspired Quality" (by James G. Shaw) published in 1996 by Jossey-Bass. The book is
part of the Warren Bennis Executive Briefing Series.
More
than half of the Shaw clients have been healthcare providers, primarily
hospitals. Shaw has provided management consulting to nearly 10% of
California's, large (200+ beds) acute care hospitals. Shaw provides
proprietary Process Advisor® software to assist quality improvement team
leaders and executive process owners. For more information, please visit
the Web site at http://www.shawresources.com.
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