[mindyg22]

I am a little lost, forgive me if I sound silly.

You had to do a Disney customer service training course? My husband works in Guest relations at Disney, which is their customer service dept. Seems weird that nurses would have to go through the same customer service training classes that he did.

[marie-francoise]

Originally Posted by mindyg22

I am a little lost, forgive me if I sound silly.

You had to do a Disney customer service training course? My husband works in Guest relations at Disney, which is their customer service dept. Seems weird that nurses would have to go through the same customer service training classes that he did.

I did the AIDET training, or at least the version implemented by the unit I was on. Subsequently, I spoke to a nurse who told me his hospital was using the Disney model to teach their nurses about customer service. There was another thread on this site that mentioned this also. And there is also the book about "if Disney ran your hospital". So I'm curious if others have been through Disney-based training for nursing customer service, or if others have gone through AIDET, and what they thought of either.

BTW, Amen to Emmanuelle Goldstein's post, above. Health care is definitely a different beast from other lines of work - why "health care as big business" just does not innately ring right, although we still acknowledge the inevitable importance of money. Striking the balance between necessary money-making and maintaining/ensuring patient's health is needed. Difficult to do. Why health care reform continues to be such an important, yet tricky, issue for politicians.

[Simba&NalasMom]

I think the acronym AIDET is fine; it's what we should be doing anyway, and what we're taught. As far as all the other Disney bells and whistles: it definitely works for Disney (I love those theme parks and the customer service is part of the awesome experience). Theme parks, restaurants, and other forms of leisure activities afford us the chance to take a break from every day life. It's why they're there.

Hospitals, nursing homes, and medical clinics are not there for the patients' entertainment. To coin a phrase I read somewhere, a frosted doggie BM is not a wedding cake; it's a frosted doggie BM. Would a client rather have top-notch medical care because the staff has time to focus solely on that or mediocre medical care because the staff is too busy trying to work around their Snow White costumes and trying to remember the lyrics to "Be our Guest?"

Do our patients deserve to be treated with dignity and respect? Absolutely. Is it in the client's best interest to have the Disney carpet rolled out? Not with the staffing ratios most of us face.

[november551]

Even on days when our nurse to patient ratio is good, sometimes we have nurses that are curt/rude/uncommunicative.

[sweetsmiles10363]

I think it's ridiculous that nurses, of all professions, are being taught customer service. we who are the most 'caring' and 'trusted' of professions. why is it even being brought up? Because pts are unhappy with our services; they feel 'uncared' for. possibly this is due to the decreased time we are able to spend with them, the small amount of education we can give them, all our other pts, how frazzled we become because our job is stressful and there's always more you can do, few breaks, worry over pts, worry over ourselves, and the million other reasons nurses burn out.

nurses don't need customer service training--anyone willing to work with the sick and disabled has to be compassionate and self-sacrificing. the industry needs to change to help nurses do what we do best--care for our pts.