Customer satisfaction callbacks

I hate doing them. I work weekends in PACU and because it's busy during the week days, I end up making post-op customer service calls for all the cases done during the week. I refuse to call that many people. What I've started doing is conveniently marking calls for cases older than Friday as "Without contact". I only actually call people who's cases were on Fridays. I cannot and will not make all those calls, especially the days when there were 40 cases.

And I hate having to ask if patients received "excellent care" and to rate us an excellent when they get a survey. I get lots of positive comments about the staff, and some of them focus on the so-called service, as if we're hospitality staff FFS. Other comments actually do recognize good care, like actual care, provided. I appreciate those comments. One benefit of making all the calls (either actually calling people or not) is I can filter out any potential complaints against me and other staff. Someone complained about me, but didn't know I was the one calling her. I've received complaints, really petty ones, against other nurses as well. Thankfully they don't pop up that often. There was only one complaint I felt the need to actually report to my manager, but by and large, the few complaints some patients make are stupid, and I don't report them.

It is often a unit secretary or some other customer service rep that makes these calls at my hospital. Don't get me started on the excellent customer service expectation...

When is this **** ever gonna stop?!?!

It is gonna stop right after a good dozen or so well-published, CNN-licked-to-the-bone cases of patients' death caused directly by "amazing care".

There was a quite recent case when "amazing, dedicated, near home care" led to multiple infants'deaths and to subsequent closure of the whole program.

CNN report on Florida hospital leads to program closure - CNN.com

When there will be another investigation(s) regarding things like overdozing with drugs kindly provided at discharge, or multiple readmissions and early deaths due to lack of post-hospital care coordination, teaching and monitoring, then the whole concept of "Disneyland experience" will fall crumbling to where it belonged initially (a subacute psych, IMH(umble)O) and be remembered together with leeches and universal pathophysioligy based in four bodily fluids. Only one question is if we're gonna live to see it, and how many people gonna pay with their lives in order to this bright day to come.

I used to do them at an old job on a med/surg ward. I, too, hated them.

On occasion, they did have merit. I had a few patients who would ask pertinent questions about their care...pain management, dressing changes, activity level, etc. Stuff that maybe they had forgotten or weren't clear on and just wanted some reassurance. Others were having real trouble and needed follow up care for nausea/intense pain/infection. Those were the ones that were worth it, but they were so few and far between.

Most of time, people wanted:

1) More/stronger pain meds (sorry, I forgot my magic Dilaudid tele-oven today)

2) Help with other unrelated medical problems (call your PCM)

3) To complain about unrelated life problems

4) To generally waste the time of a nurse who had better things to do.

The spin on this in my former place of employment was that due to shorter stays, we could be sure that the patient was "ok" and not having complications and understand their medication and how to take it. That they were managed as far as pain (and I need to borrow SoldierNurse's teleport for the dilaudid) and they knew when to follow up, start PT, whatever applicable. To which then became "contact your PCP" or "you need to be seen" or to get VNA to see them (which happened if there was a complicated wound dressing, etc. as part of the discharge plan anyways).

Oh, and ending the call with the ever so irritating "We hope you were delighted and you will be receiving your survey in the mail" and other coy catchphrases. Which in my opinion, negates the supposed purpose of the call. Much like anything else in healthcare, we really don't particularly care how it is going, just that you fill out the survey to our advantage.

It would be far, far easier to have recorded messages on auto dial with "we hope you were delighted, and indicate so on the survey you will be receiving in 2 weeks!! If you have any questions/comments/concerns, please call your primary care office or come into our Urgent Care!! Because we have the TIME for YOU"

And these calls are all tied to reimbursement. So a patient won't have complications and come to find out for instance after anesthesia they do not remember any patient teaching/education. And state that on the survey.

Then it starts all these QA initiatives...

That is one thing I do NOT miss about working in the ER. We used to pick 3 visits each from the day before and call back under the pretense "to see how you are doing". We used to have to follow this script "Was there anything we could have done to improve your stay?" "We realize you have a choice in where your health care needs are met. Thank you for choosing ________ Hospital." Ugh.

The best part for me, as a charge nurse, was handing 3 patient charts each to the docs and PAs to make their call backs too (with an evil laugh), because it wasn't just the nurses, it was EVERYONE in the department who had to make these call backs.

Sometimes we would flag charts for callbacks, if we wanted to check in with someone we were worried about. I used to HATE making callback the day after a super busy lots of waiting shift.

You have got to be kidding me. I get doing this but it should be the role of the office staff. I only work in LTC and there is no way in hell I would have time even on one shift to call our discharged rehab patients. I would never get off the phone. And then, if they told me something was wrong, like chest pain, I would have to make sure their personal doctor was called (and I would have to do it out of worry they wouldn't), etc etc and the crap rolls down hill from there, I would never get around to give meds to our actual patients.

This is like the time at my last job in occupational health where admin told us we were no longer allowed to accept walk ins from patients, doctors were getting pissed about their schedules. But we were no long allowed to turn anyone away. Um, what? What planet do you live on.

I agree...many patients don't need to be encouraged with their unhealthy choices and their lack of accountability for their own choices. It seems like more and more our society doesn't value work. Doesn't value doing the right thing. Or personal accountability. At my hospital, the patient care supervisors did the 'patient satisfaction call-backs'. I have no idea what happened if they said they weren't satisfied.

We do this on my med-surg floor too but they will pull someone out of an assignment to do it at least. Still just hurts me to have to say "we hope your care was fantastic and you'll rate us as excellent, blah blah blah." Ugh

Ah this is my gripe with healthcare in general. The H is changing from hospital to hotel and the people pushing for this change have never been in the trenches. Idiotic if you ask me.

My go to line when someone asks me about customer service surveys; "a patient leaving the hospital alive is the best customer service we can provide"

I am all about giving top notch care, but sorry it should not be a provider's job to fluff your pillows, get your ice water, talk about your non medical problems, get you valet parking, have your food reheated, etc..