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Cuing into Service Failures

As healthcare leaders, physicians and staff we know our “world”, how things work, who works with who and we can form realistic expectations. Our patients and their families are new to our world and can form incorrect expectations without even knowing it, which can lead to service disappointments. By walking in our patients’ slippers, seeing things from their position in an exam gown we can prevent service failures before they happen. Paying attention to wait times, asking questions, anticipating a schedule change and communicating. These are just the surface of the well of opportunities we have to cue into patient needs. (Video Duration: 2min:20s)

Course Description

Understanding exactly what Service Recovery is and having a plan for implementation is top of mind for leaders in healthcare across the country. Service Recovery is a communication practice and process (including a set of tools and techniques) that can be used to make things right after something has gone wrong with the healthcare experience. Service recovery, when executed timely and effectively not only improves patient loyalty and referrals, it also positively affects quality and service outcomes.

We can all relate to times we have been disappointed by a service, restaurant, travel, or product experience. Chances are, there are instances when that individual or organization stepped in to recover your disappointment, as well as times when no one addressed your concern. How did their action (or inaction) influence your loyalty to that organization? 

The reality in healthcare is that recovering disappointments is profound to shaping the memories, referrals, loyalty, quality, and service outcomes. We are a high risk, high emotion industry and despite our calls to serve and missions, we can make mistakes. According to research, 55% of individuals are already worried something might go wrong during their hospital stay. Knowing we must work harder and harder to meet the demands of patients and consumers across our diverse continuum of care settings, evaluating the effectiveness of your service recovery process can pay dividends in creating patient and family loyalty. 

This course is best for:
  • Leaders
  • Physicians
  • Staff
  • Anyone looking to improve healthcare communication

Course Objectives

By the end of this 5-part course, you will be able to:
  1. Create a culture of responsiveness to patient and family needs and expectations
  2. Equip all employees to address a service failure
  3. Turn a negative situation into a positive one
  4. Prevent a negative situation before it occurs
  5. Have the practice, policy, and procedure to address a situation
  6. Monitor trends and opportunities to improve