5 West Nursing

Have you ever experienced calling a customer service center and instead of having live person answer you, you get a “machine”? I’m sure you have, and if you haven’t… what planet are you from?

To make matters worse, it gets really frustrating if you have to go through a “menu” of choices until you get to the “right selection”… you know, the message that says “Please listen carefully before making a selection as our menu may have changed… press 1 if you know your party’s extension, otherwise….” blah, blah, blah. Imagine going through the choices, and not finding what you were looking for, you’d have to press 0 (zero) for the operator, by which you are put on hold and some pleasant elevator music keeps you company… forever!

Imagine how that would be for our patients… “Where have you been? I’ve been calling on my call bell for 2 hours now and the lady told me you were coming!”, with that you sheepishly respond… “I didn’t know, NOBODY TOLD ME!” I’m sure this never happens to you… but if it does, doesn’t it make you look bad? After all, you’re not responsible for what you don’t know, right? Unfortunately, your patient don’t know this. So what do you do? Like most people you just ignore it… life will go on (you say), and soon your patient gets discharged with the impression that you don’t answer your call lights!

Thanks to your wireless communication devices, we actually have another good use for them. Not only can we communicate with each other more efficiently, but we can also have our patients communicate with us without having to go through a third party. How? Simple… just write your extension number on the board after your name! That’s it. Well, not quite… of course you’ll have to instruct your patient how to reach you…

Knock, knock… “Hello, my name is [Yourname] I’ll be your nurse today. I just came to see how you were doing and assist you if you have any concerns. I’ll write my name on the board and my phone number so you can reach me direct. I always have my phone with me (showing your wireless communication device). That way, I can respond to you pronto!”*

Result… happy patients. I had 2 of them actually call me direct. It does 2 things for them. 1) they can reach you fast and therefore decrease or allay anxiety, and 2) it shows them you care enough to have them get to you straight… no 3rd party “answering machines”, just a live person at the end of the line.

Just like our customer service experience, when we call a company and get a real live person we tell ourselves, “Wow! This company really care for their customers to have someone man the phones and wait for my call”. I guess it just make for a good customer service experience, and since we’re talking about “Service Excellence”, maybe this little caring gesture (which I learned from Methodist Hospital of Arcadia in California), might give us that “boost” that will help set us apart from the other hospitals, and thus increase our competitive advantage. Just like you already know… it’s the small things that count!

*Side Note: At Methodist Hospital of Arcadia (highly recommended workplace should you find yourself in California), even the CNAs have phones with their number on the board, and thus their patients can call them directly. I’m sure the hospital can afford extra phones for our CNAs. Its a small price to pay with absolutely huge returns on investment. By the way, CNAs, that might as well be your name up there in the photo… Superman and Superwoman of 5 West…keep up the awesome job!