by Richard Stokes
As residents of Atlanta we’re all familiar with our local consumer advocate; Clark Howard. And, if you’ve listened to him before you’ve probably heard a story or two when he’s reporting on a company that’s been delivering ‘customer no service.’ So, along the lines of that topic, for March’s educational session we are going to hear from Deborah Wexler with Mag Mutual Insurance Company.
As a registered nurse, she has hands on experience inside medical practices. For the last 11 years she has been focused in the risk management field having worked for Emory Healthcare and now Mag Mutual Insurance Company.
Deborah is going to be talking to us about service lapses and communication breakdowns that lead to patient dissatisfaction, complaints and in some cases, medical malpractice claims. During her presentation she is going to provide us with some tools and strategies on how to improve safety and customer service.
Deborah says that this topic is very important right now because in today’s competitive and accountable environment, patient safety and satisfaction are under increased public scrutiny. As a result, customer satisfaction is becoming more and more important to the success of the practice.
Two of the key items she wants us to leave with a better understanding of are:
- Ideas on how to improve the patient experience
- Ways to enhance your outcomes
Deborah goes on to say that attaining these can still be done while meeting the organization’s business and procedural requirements.
Learning new information is always great, but it’s never going to be effective if the information learned isn’t actually applied. After hearing from Deborah some of the actions she hopes you implement in your own practice would be:
- Conduct a customer service self-assessment
- Use patient and employee feedback to determine areas to address
- Promote and support service standards throughout the organization
Deborah is going to be a great resource so please ask her questions during the meeting. If you are looking for more information you can also check out the following:
- ECRI Institute, Measuring Patient Satisfaction, Experiences, and Perceptions of Care, Healthcare Risk Control Risk Analysis, January 2005, Volume 2, Patient Support Services 2
- www.magmutual.com
- John Goodman and Diane Ward, “Satisfied Patients Lower Risk and Improve the Bottom Line”, Patient Safety and Quality Healthcare (PSQH), March/April 2008
If you haven’t already registered for this month’s event, what are you waiting for? Feel free to share this with your peers and colleagues and invite them to attend as well. North Fulton MGMA.
