Current state of customer services in the hospitals – Uche Mojekwu
Uche Mojekwu
Let me share this incredible tale, whether it is a tragic or surprising story is entirely up to you. “A woman (Ada) was nursing and taking care of her critically sick husband all by herself in a popular teaching hospital, where nurses were overworked and barely paid attention to patients. (Now) Despite the fact that this man’s condition was very critical and no one was sure of his recovery, his wife Ada continued to dote on him devotedly. She was determined to give him the best care until the final outcome (whatever that may be).
In this hospital, it wasn’t unusual to find doctors doing rounds, yet barely giving adequate attention to each patient. On a certain day, when a doctor (Dr. Ayo) came to conduct routine check, Ada tried inquiring from the doctor why her husband was not getting any better. However, the doctor barely gave her a response, muttered a word under his breath and moved on to the next patient.
A few minutes later, the man started hyperventilating, went into shock and collapsed. Dr. Ayo simply strolled back to the bedside, checked the man’s pulses and pronounced him dead on the spot. Ada went ballistic! In a twinkling of an eye, she had jumped on the doctor attacking her with a metal flask, and hitting him multiple times on the head. Dr. Ayo was helpless screaming like a banshee, calling out for help. It took a minimum of four people to take down Ada and carry her out of the hospital building.”
You might be wondering; “Why did she attack Dr. Ayo? It was not the doctor’s fault her husband died. He was already critically ill.” All true! However, this woman just experienced the worst case of negligence and poor customer service, that led to the demise of a loved one. Who is to tell her how to react?
The hard reality is that the burden of sickness and death rates is directly proportional to the quality of service provided in hospitals. The current state of the Nigerian economy, especially in the health sector affects the value of health care negatively. It is now a common practice for individuals with high net worth to seek health care services outside Nigeria for the slightest illness. Evidently, consumers gravitate towards the best service experience even when that comes at a premium on price. The case of poor customer service continues to present itself as a huge opportunity for growth in the Nigerian health care sector.
Patients and their loved ones using hospital services require a unique nature of care and attention than services received elsewhere- in other sectors
The sensitive nature of health crisis requires fair treatment, quick responses, effective communication, intense emotional intelligence as well as professional and skilled knowledge from its staff. Yet, in the current state of Nigeria, financial constraints, continuous rising inflation, insecurity issues and general pressure in the environment have a huge adverse effect on the health sector in Nigeria. Not to mention the fact that a good chunk of the country’s migrations has come from health care givers searching for greener pastures in better paying economies.
Staff downsizing and salary cuts have become a common practice in a lot of organizations all over the country. In some cases, hospital management recruit poorly qualified care givers in a bid to save costs and/or maximize profits. Additionally, often times, basic infrastructure and equipment needed by the hospital staff to perform optimally is not provided. This expectedly leads to staff dissatisfaction. And the patients (although not normally referred to as customers), who are in fact the sole reasons hospitals are in operation, unfortunately bear the brunt of these inadequacies.
With the current situation of the country, it is unfair to place all the blame on the hospitals’ management. THE PROBLEM MAY NOT BE THEIR FAULT, HOWEVER, IT IS THEIR RESPONSIBILITY TO PROVIDE QUALITY HEALTHCARE SERVICE AS LONG AS THEIR OUTFIT IS OPEN TO THE PUBLIC. IT IS AN UNSPOKEN PROMISE!
Take a moment and think about this scenario in the case described above, what really could have been the reason for Dr Ayo’s negligence while approaching patients?
- Could it be that he lacked emotional intelligence and needed to show compassion to the sick\dying?
- Could it be that he had been working long hours at a very low pay grade, therefore executing his job nonchalantly?
- Could it be that he lacked the specific training to handle critical cases, or there was inadequate equipment and maybe this caused Dr Ayo’s frustration at work?
- Could it be that Dr Ayo’s life was plagued with troubling issues and the hospital provided no assess to a professional therapist for mental counselling and evaluation?
Whatever the reasons are, there are few low-cost strategies that hospitals can embrace to improve their customer service experience for optimum patient care.
Let’s examine a few;
- Hospitals must not only see patients as customers but as people in need of help, and treat them with respect and compassion
- Hospitals must recruit for skill and attitude and continually retrain staff on customer service, emotional Intelligence, personal leadership and effective communication
- Hospitals must understand the power of effective feedback and should follow up on discharged patients either by calls, emails or fixing appointments
- Hospitals should establish clear and measurable goals for every employee, ensuring that employees are not over worked and their job roles are aligned to their competencies
- Hospitals should ensure that work equipment are provided, maintained at optimum capacity, and readily available to staff so staff are not stressed due to tiring improvising techniques
- Hospitals must have correct documentation and keep proper records of patients’ information to reduce the risk of life-threatening mistakes.
- Hospitals must improve on their payment methods and develop software that enable easy billing and payment methods. For example, including their patients on a payment plan or advising them to acquire health insurance, etc.
- Hospitals must provide readily available therapeutic aid for its staff as health care service is understandably an emotionally and mentally draining sector.
- Most importantly, hospitals must develop a ‘patient-first’ mindset and attitude in staff members in order the instill a great sense of duty in all organization staff
Remember that to the customer, everyone one staff is ‘the health care company’, The end to end customer experience in the health care sector includes many touch points and interactions between the customer and the ‘health care company’. Happy patients return and refer others,
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