Stop Showering Patients With Luxury

Convinced that catering to women was a good investment toward developing brand loyalty, hospital managers were knocking themselves out in the 1980s to make giving birth a pleasing as well as a joyful experience for new moms.  Arguably, the best thing that came out of the movement was the expanded use of LDRP rooms, where mothers labor, deliver, recover and spend their postpartum stay all in the same room.  

The worse thing the movement did was to reinforce for many consumers just how rich hospitals were and how expensive hospital care can be, as attempts to improve the patient experience took on the extremes of a gourmet brunch with the new dad and a ride home in a limousine with a brand new car seat for the baby, all courtesy of the local community hospital.

Well, here we go again.  Hospital managers are trying to crack the code on improving the patient experience, as measured by their reportable patient satisfaction scores, using modest-to-ridiculous tactics. Brand loyalty is still a motivator, but threats of payment reductions and lower-valued positioning in health plan provider networks are driving the effort this time around.  

Coincidentally, the the same hospital system that spearheaded the brunch-limo-car-seat-for-new-moms effort is now offering 5-star hotel services, including resort-like dining and towels wrapped in animal shapes for their patients.  I don’t question the positive visceral influences of such tactics on patients and their families; it makes them feel really good about their stay in the hospital.  The latent, more deeply ingrained influence on opinions and perspectives about health care financing, though, should not be ignored.  Quite frankly, it’s this kind of nonsense that makes it difficult for hospital trade associations to lobby against cuts in Medicare and Medicaid payments.  Hospital managers need to stop bribing patients with perks and showing off their shiny new equipment to every elected official whose vote against payment cuts they seek.   

Cracking the code on improving the patient experience is not rocket science.  Start with three basic premises, and you have the foundation for an improvement strategy:

First, unless your patients are having babies or are coming to you for an appearance makeover, assume that they really would prefer to be anywhere else away from you; all they really want is to go home…hopefully either cured or with a treatment plan for whatever ails them.  If you understand this, then you will look for ways to shorten all wait times.  Physician and hospital wait rooms and wait times are unpleasant experiences.  Get patients to treatment rooms as close to sign-in as possible, and get your systems and processes together to get them out of your office or hospital just as quickly. 

Secondly, becoming a patient starts with ceding control of one’s dignity to you. Everyone who encounters patients –from caregivers to housekeepers– should do so with respect and take the time to connect with them.  Stop talking at your patients, as I see most everywhere in the hospitals I visit, and start talking to them.  And know that workforce diversity does matter.  Having a workforce that mirrors the population you serve enhances the patient experience and shortens healing times.

Lastly, create a culture that encourages kindness, going the extra mile and breaking the rules when doing so will lift the spirits of your patients.  Nurses at one hospital brought a dying patient’s very pregnant daughter in from another city to deliver at their hospital so that the patient could hold her grandchild before she died.  Another hospital granted a terminally ill patient’s wish for a pedicure and time with her dog.  Children who undergo huge surgeries at another hospital first visit with patient ambassadors who take all the time needed to talk through and describe everything that will happen in surgery and at the hospital in terms children can understand. 

The husbands of both terminally patients could not stop singing the praises for the care their wives received.  And, as the parent of a child who needed a big surgery not too long ago, I am very happy that we took her to a hospital that provided her with a patient ambassador instead of gourmet meals and towels wrapped to resemble animals.

Jim Lott is executive vice president of external affairs and talent development For Cope Health Solutions, a healthcare policy analysis and consulting firm in Los Angeles.