I read more and more about patient customer service, patient satisfaction to maintain and attract patients and try and create loyalty to their particular hospital. In reading these varied articles I think about what the cost associated with doing this might be and I don’t think to many organizations have been able to assign a cost associated with customer service and patient satisfaction and loyalty.
Why? Because the tools to do this are in my opinion not available or intangible at best. Also I am not sure how wonderful the hospital is to patients in the area of customer service and satisfaction, isn’t the real determining factor a patients physician who directs their patients to a particular facility. I have seen many doctors admit their patients to many different hospitals because I believe there are certain perks, needs or relationships that they prefer at one hospital over another. Of course this costs money and I don’t know of any hospital that has tracked what it takes to get a Physician to admit patients exclusively to their hospital. I believe this cost can be tracked but CEO’s and CFO’s need to think about this and see if they or some vendor can achieve the cost of customer service, patient loyalty and satisfaction.