Today, patient experience is a top-three kind of issue, ranking even higher than cost reduction. Yet three-quarters of health care organizations have yet to define what patient experience means to them, let alone set aside money to address it. The more progressive executives who have tried to tackle the challenge head-on, however, have gone about t

In the wake of a poor patient experience, that patient will not be coming back the next time he or she gets sick, which means you just lost a valuable long-term customer—and probably the rest of the family, too.

engaged employees will drive higher patient satisfaction, so too will the combination of high employee and patient measurements push profits higher.

“Focusing on employee engagement is akin to being on an airplane and putting your oxygen mask on first, before attending to your kids. How can our people help their patients when they, too, are suffering?”

The Beryl Cares committee manages a website and database that keeps track of everything from important dates (birthdays, anniversaries, and such) to any news relevant to each employee, such as any deaths or sicknesses in the family or even a recent accomplishment (finishing a marathon, for instance). When an important event or date occurs, the syst

Firms of Endearment: How World-Class Companies Profit from Passion and Purpose, authors David Wolfe, Rajendra Sisodia, and Jagdish Sheth tracked a series of companies known for having strong employee cultures—a list that included such familiar names as Whole Foods, Harley-Davidson, and Patagonia. The authors found that the companies on their list p

By having the discipline to conduct the surveys regularly over time, we can analyze the patterns that emerge, patterns that can either give us reasons to celebrate progress or, on the other hand, to hit the pause button and find out where we’re beginning to go wrong. We can then target the areas where we receive the lowest scores and set about tryi

It turns out the wait times weren’t the true issue. Patients expected to wait at the doctor’s office! It was the unknown, and the apparent lack of concern, that drove them crazy.

The more our employees are engaged, the more satisfied our patients will be—which will then lead to more and more business for the organization. It’s really that simple. Your financial performance is actually the lagging indicator, not the leading indicator, of how healthy your organization is.