wookiee

Customer Satisfaction has become the biggest buzz word in the industry, and for important reasons, bottom line profit. If the patient is not happy, they now have the choice to take their business elsewhere, and the hospitals are seeing this happen on a daily basis. Where I run into a problem with the whole thing is that it is the only buzz work in many hospitals, and all the rest of the issues are left on the side of the road so to speak. I personally am from the old school where you first take care of the ones that provide the "Customer Service" namely the Nursing staff. It is sort of like the old saying "If Momma ain't happy, nobody's happy". I see it this way, a happy nurse is a good nurse (for the most part), whose patients are then in turn happy with the care that they are recieving, then you get your good ratings. Pressuring staff by impossing sombody elses standards is not going to make for a better and happier place for the patients, what will however is to take steps to make for a better work environment, ie better staffing and patient ratios, at least adiquate equipment that functions most of the time, and par levels that reflect the supply needs on the floor. Knowing the strength's and weaknesses of staff is important, but to catagorize them in performance levels is only going to make them even more unhappy with where they work and in turn make the patient satisfaction ratings go into the cellar. If I were to ever have or see a floor manager, or anyone from management come up to a staff member and give them an "at-a-boy", you did a great job with patient so and so, I think I would be a canidate for the CCU. Rather than harrass staff to provide better customer service, it would be my suggestion for management to attend classes on how to empower their staff, how to make their staff feel like more of a team, rather than to single them out for lack of being happy. What the heck ever happened to Employee Satisfaction anyway? Wookiee Just one big dumb hairy ape!