Tag Archives: Customer Service in Healthcare

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Some Use Cases For Alexa In Healthcare – Part 2

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Since my last post about a use case for Alexa before an office visit, I had some additional ideas and I also received some feedback from a few sources.

I thought a measure of loneliness might be useful and with a little research, I found the De Jong Gierveld 6-Item Loneliness Survey. I’ve added it to my demo Alexa Skill I’ve called Office Visit Prepper.  See a sample of the EMR page below:

Sample EMR Page

Sample EMR Page

It shows the patient’s Goals, Barriers and Loneliness Survey responses requested by Office Visit Prepper.

There also were concerns from both patients and primary care physicians (PCP) regarding the lack of the physician’s access to specialist visit notes at the time the PCP office visit with the patient.  I believe Alexa could also help solve this issue but the process is quite a bit more complicated.  Let me suggest 2 approaches.  Each requires that Alexa has access to both the patient’s health insurance records and the PCP.s EMR.  Alexa could then determine what specialist visits occurred and whether the PCP’s EMR had those electronic records.  Then there could be a passive option to help solve this issue and an active one that would occur as part of the information gathering of a Skill like Office Visit Prepper:

  1. Passive – The patient gets informed that records from some specialists are missing and Alexa asks the patient to contact the specialist offices to have them forward the information to the PCP.  Ideally, these would be in an electronic format.
  2. Active – Alexa informs the patient of the missing records and asks the patient for permission to obtain them.  Once the patient approves, Alexa contacts the specialist offices to get the records sent to the PCP.

My plan is to post some more of my ideas for Alexa helping care delivery.  Next time I’ll talk about two use cases during the office visit.

I look forward to your comments about the uses cases I have posted and others you would like to see implemented in healthcare delivery.

To Your Health! – Dr. Bob

Part 2 – Steps You Should Take During Your Hospital Stay

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In my last post I talked about steps you can take prior to an elective hospitalization or procedure to try to make sure that you experience quality care from a customer care perspective.  Now I’ll turn to what you can do while you are in the hospital or other healthcare facility.

It’s a little more difficult for you alone to assure you get quality customer service there.  For one thing, you will meet several healthcare professionals there whose actions will contribute to the level of customer service you experience plus, in most instances, you won’t be fully aware of what’s going on.  Remember, the staff take direction from your physician though they usually report to the institution’s Nursing Supervisor.  Most healthcare teams look to the attending physician to set the tone.  If you experience any issues, discuss them with the Nursing Supervisor or your physician.  The following tips should help prevent such issues from arising.

Don’t Go It Alone

Perhaps the most important thing you should do while hospitalized is to have a friend or relative with you as much as possible during your stay.  Between the stress of being ill and side effects of anesthesia and other medications, you will not be as alert nor as mentally sharp as usual.  Your communication skills will be diminished during this time.  You need a knowledgeable advocate at your bedside who can help you communicate with your caregivers.

Communication Is Critical

Part of effective communication includes maintaining a positive relationship with the staff taking care of you.  It should be obvious that a positive relationship will naturally cause the staff to be more likely to go the extra mile for you. It’s important to understand their perspective.  Each of them has been trained to do his or her job to maximize your clinical outcomes, but not every one of them is encouraged to vary from standard procedures.  They don’t usually have the authority to change how they perform their tasks.  However, if you ask them respectfully to make an exception and do something differently, most will either follow your suggestions, if they can, or ask their supervisor.  Think of the example of the Nursing Assistant checking my friend’s temperature on her neck after it had been covered with a blanket and finding the temperature to be above normal (Details).  She should have rechecked it later after the blanket was off for a while.  My friend had been a bit curt with the Nursing Assistant.  When you act rudely, you may feel you make your point, but the staff member who is the target of your tirade will only do what they are required to do.  It comes down to showing respect and putting yourself in their place.  I have personally seen patients get arrogant and rude with some healthcare staff which alienates the very people they should want to have on their side.

In summary, I believe the key to helping assure you get quality customer care during a hospital or outpatient stay is Communication.  This includes:

  • Having someone present who can help you communicate with the clinical staff,
  • Discussing your concerns with the appropriate staff, &
  • Doing so in a respectful way. Keep in mind the Golden Rule!

Next time I’ll discuss what you can do after your hospitalization or procedure to optimize the quality of the customer service that is part of the healthcare experience.  Comments are welcome!

For Your Health – Dr. Bob

Part 1 – Steps You Should Take Before Your Procedure

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This post will be a continuation of a discussion on the role of Customer Care (Service) in healthcare delivery.  The experience of a friend prompted me to begin talking about this a few posts ago in Does Customer Care Trump Technical Skill in Health Care Quality?  My last post, How Does Customer Care Fit in Health Care Quality? began to explore the role of Customer Care.  Now we’ll get more practical.

So how do you make sure your care is the best, both from a clinical and personal or customer service perspective?  Depending on the medical issue and urgency of getting treatment, you may have a chance to do some investigation before the procedure.  Over the next 3 posts, I will discuss activities to be done during each of these 3 time periods:.

  1. Before your procedure
  2. During your stay in the healthcare facility
  3. After you go home

Let’s start with what you can do before the procedure.

Clinical Quality

Since many healthcare needs occur suddenly and their treatment can be critical, you may think it is impossible to know which doctor to choose or where to get the care.  If it is an emergency and you’re in the Emergency Room (ER), unless you know of a specific specialist for your problem, you will get the specialist appropriate for your condition who is on-call for the ER.  These on-call physicians have had their credentials reviewed and approved by the hospital, though customer service or what is sometimes called “bedside manner” is not usually a quality that gets reviewed.  If you already have a primary care physician (PCP), you can always ask the ER physician to contact your PCP to get the PCP’s recommendation for a specialist.  So even if an emergency occurs, you don’t have to go it alone.  It’s another good reason to establish yourself with a PCP while you’re well.

If you will be having an elective procedure, like a thyroidectomy or hysterectomy for non-urgent reasons, ask the surgeon about the number of procedures they do per month as well as their success & complication rates.  The more experience, the better.  Also, make sure they are Board Certified in the appropriate area of specialization.  In most states you can also look at an individual physician’s information on the state’s Board of Medicine website.  The exact name of the board varies from state to state but a search for board of medicine and your state’s name should help you find it.  This information gives you an indication of the clinical competence of the physician.

Customer Service (Bedside Manner)

Judging bedside manner is a little more difficult.  Some websites, such as ones provided by health insurers, give patient reviews of physicians and their practices.  If you know someone who has the same medical issue, ask them about the specialist and the care they’ve received.  Ask if they’d recommend getting treatment from that physician and facility.

Finally, if you happen to know a nurse or another health professional, ask them if they know about the specialist you are planning to see.  Perhaps, they’ve worked with the physician and know firsthand the kind of care he or she provides.

In the next post I’ll talk about some of the steps you can take while you’re in the healthcare facility during your treatment or while having your procedure.  I welcome your comments.

For Your Health – Dr. Bob