Remember going to school and learning the older, crazy approaches to medicine that people used to practice:
Drilling holes in the head to relieve sickness, letting spirits out.
The belief that sickness was a punishment from God and was a direct result of sins.
Civil War doctors who removed limbs the second someone was shot/scrapped in the leg because it avoided infection.
Those are the one's I can recall right at this moment. I know there are more. Today, we are in a stage of major change within our health system. There is a push for "customer service" that was not there before. It is no longer simply something schools/administration talk about, it is expected. Surveys asking if the nurses fetched your AM coffee on time type questions abound. Doctors who talk down to or belittle patients are no longer tolerated by hospital administration. Compensation to facilities can be reduced despite properly caring for the illness because it was not done with a smile.
Do you think this is simply the "vogue" theory of today and will eventually be replaced, or is it truly a push towards a new future in healthcare?
I am undecided TBH. I don't agree with the degree in which the "customer satisfaction" is being made a priority. Its almost as if hospitals would fare better with the general public and the powers that be if we simply stopped treating illness and took on a Bed And Breakfast style of treatment. To this I say "Be careful what you wish for, you might get it." Already I see managers pushing "smile when you enter the room" when they should be concerned with possible med errors and pt's being transferred to their unit who are not appropriate for said unit.
Its almost as if there is this "We need to get paid, times are tough. Just give them what they want" surrender going on with hospitals and facilities. So, what you are telling me is, no problem if a pt. receives another patients meds or is aspirating their own meds..................so long as we smile and make everything happy.
Seems to me some patients should just save themselves the hassle and just to to Denny's or go on vacation. They could get all that at a quarter of the cost.
I don't know if good medical treatment always lends to good customer service. If you've ever worked on a M/S unit with the non-compliant diabetic you know what I mean. They want snacks that don't conform to their diet at all constantly, and are very upset if they are not granted. Then you have the smoker who insists he is SOB because the doctor doesn't know how to order the right inhaler................the COPD has nothing to do with smoking over a pack a day. And we have all seen the pt. who just refused to break out of the sickness "asking for help" role and start doing for themselves. They refuse PT/OT, want everything done for them and are going to end up in a nursing home if they don't get their bottoms out of bed. But, if you tell them they must start being more active in their own ADLs, you are a jaded/bad nurse and the survey scores reflect this.
We are, very frequently, in a position of having to tell the truth, even when said truth is not "nice" or lends itself to "customer service". What benefit are we giving our pt. when we stash the truth in order to earn better survey scores? Yes, in the short term they are very pleased with the quickness in which we fetch the third ice cream they request, but when their foot is amputated..........what do they think of our service to them then? Truth is, if "customer satisfaction" promoted healing, Denny's would have people walking after years of being wheelchair bound and Retail stores would be the place to go for that abd. pain. It doesn't work that way.
Customer service definitely has its place in the healthfield, but not to the degree it is being taken. Who amongst us doesn't know that grouchy, unhappy with EVERYTHING nurse who has been told to act differently with people..........and thinks it was long overdue. I know of two specific doctors who were mandated to take classes to improve their bedside manner (oh, how we all snickered at this). I don't think the expectation of respect and kindness are out of order. But is what we are doing now relative to this? Or are we going to read about ourselves in 20 years in some new nursing book "The customer satisfaction age of medical practice was dollar driven and lead to an increase in foot amputations blah blah.........."
