Question
Care Clinic Scenario: The Executive Team of Care Clinic prides itself in the care that is provided to the community of Summerville, Florida. The Clinic is known for holistic approach to the individuals served at the clinic as well as presenting various community outreach programs. Annually, the Executive Team of Care Clinic reviews the client satisfaction benchmark results related to client service and quality indicators. The scores have substantially decreased in the past 12 months in the categories of client satisfaction and quality care.
To assist in understanding the quality issues related to client care occurring within the Care Clinic, you are provided with two videos of client situations that have been recorded using Second Life. You are also required to enter Second Life to observe actions and conversations occurring within the Care Clinic. When viewing the videos and participating within the Care Clinic located in Second Life, consider yourself to be the manager and identify quality care issues consistent with decreasing client satisfaction scores. From your leadership perspective, determine how the declining benchmarks can be addressed and improved. Discuss the actions/changes that need to be implemented in order to improve the satisfaction scores and attained Care Clinic quality outcomes.
The Care Clinic Improvement Project will need to be completed by the end of week six of this course and requires that each of the following areas to be addressed.
- Identify ONE satisfaction benchmark that you will be addressing and why this benchmark has been selected. Select the ONE client satisfaction benchmark from the following list:
- Decrease in client satisfaction scores related to courtesy and friendliness of staff at the Care Clinic.
- Decrease in client satisfaction scores related to staff explaining discharge instructions in a manner that is understandable to the client/client.
- Decrease in the quality nursing care related to interventions provided to clients at the Clinic.
- Describe the leadership dynamics related to how the improvement/change project will be managed.
- Identify the change model that will be used in addressing the selected benchmark.
- Describe the course of action/change.
Course Outcomes
Through this assignment, the student will demonstrate the ability to:
CO #2: Analyze goal directed leadership actions that foster positive healthcare outcomes and effective processes at individual, community, and global healthcare settings.
CO #3: Develop personal and strategic communication modalities that foster negotiation, advocacy and positive work environments within diverse healthcare settings.
CO #5: Incorporate ongoing leadership character development, values and ethical principles into a living leader role that collaborates with and engages individuals, teams, agencies, and organizations locally as well as globally
Sample paper
Care Clinic Improvement Project -CUSTOMER SATISFACTION
The health care industry is important as any other sector in any economy around the globe. With the current innovations and inventions in technology and information technology, doctors and other medical practitioners have an opportunity to research and treat more complex ailments that have been disturbing and infecting people in the recent past. Nursing being a major component of the health care industry has a duty to provide care for individual, families and communities to boost their chances of attaining, maintaining and recovering optimal health care and quality of life. Notably, in health care, everyone is a customer and all employees in the health care industry should put emphasis and efforts in delivering customer-oriented services that are transparent. The professional behavior exhibited by nurses should send a clear message to all clients that they are working in the best interest of their customers and their intent is to battle for their clients and not against them. This essay will attempt to identify and discuss some of the methods and techniques that can be employed by the organization in the health care industry to guarantee high-quality services as well as improving customer satisfaction.
Part 1
Organization main objective
The basic purpose and objective of any organization are to attract more customers as possible. However, to achieve this aim any business needs to understand that customer satisfaction is paramount and the needs of the clients should always come first. Customer satisfaction is widely used in marketing to measure how products and services provided and supplied by an organization meets or surpass a customer’s expectation. Customer satisfaction is crucial to the management of any organization considering that it provides a scale through which the company can manage and improve their business (Faezipour, 2013). On the same note, data and information that is obtained from the customer can be used in decision making. Customer satisfaction in the service industry, especially healthcare industry might be complex and complicated compared to the product industry considering that the personality of the service provider is tested.
Improving patient satisfaction, customer service and the customer experience id the dream of every healthcare organization around the globe. One of the techniques that can be used by the most organization if not all to improve their customer satisfaction scores is by being courteous and friendly to the clients at the care clinic. A great customer service in the healthcare industry means systems as well as the smiles that help the pain and tension that may exist between the patient and the care provider. Statistics show that patients, who consider medical practitioners in an organization to be courteous and friendly will recommend to the facility to their friends, will come back to the facility if a need arises and are likely to respond to the treatment and medication provided positively. This benchmark is paramount for any organization because it determines the satisfaction scores and rates of the service provided as well as the success of the treatment offered. In most cases, friendly environment believed to give a patient an ample time to recover from his ailments. To be courteous, the care provider needs to:
- Acknowledge the patient and family members – the first impression that a care provider creates in the presence of his or her patients, and their families widely determine their relationship within the duration that the patient will be in the facility. A mere acknowledgment of the patient and his family may make the patient happy and feel appreciated and thus push him or her to fully disclose his or her problem and well as their past medical records. Also, the patient the care provider creates a platform and an opportunity for the patient and any member of the family to enquire anything about the patient’s condition which leads to greater and better understanding of the situation.
- The care provider should introduce himself or herself by name and role to the patient and family members – most health care experts believe that referring to a patient or a member of staff by the name creates a friendly environment as both parties are open to conversation. After the acknowledgments, the doctor or the nurse should state his or her name his role in the hospital and the main reason as to why he or she is attending to the patient. Some hospitals have introduced nametags to both the patient and the care provider, but it is always good to for both parties introduce themselves to each other before the commencement of the treatment(Cina, 2013).
- The care provider should explain the care, procedures, and diagnosis to be conducted both in the patients and family members present – this process helps to enlighten and prepare the patient and his or her family members of what to come and preparing them for any results. Moreover, the care provider should at least give an estimation of the duration that the patient will be required to remain in the facility as well as fully disclosing how long each diagnosis will take. It is not prudent to take the patient by surprise as it may cause further complications.
- The care provider should thank the patient and the family for entrusting him or her to their care – most of the times are when the health care providers provide the notion that they have nothing to thank the client for but rather the client should thank them. However, this is wrong, and both parties should thank each other for entrusting their lives and health on that particular healthcare provider, and the patient should thank the care provider for willingness to treat them and taking care of their lives as well as health.
Related: Health Policy Presentation-Long-term Care
Part 2
Leadership in organization
Leadership is paramount to every form of organization and may consider as a journey rather than a destination. A good leader provides the sense of direction, lead by example and motivate his or her followers to achieve a predetermined set of goals and objectives. Leadership dynamics taking the form of training and refresher courses are meant to provide staff and employees of an organization with the necessary tools and equipment to make their work easier and enjoyable. Thus, any arrangement made by the leadership or supervisor of a department or an organization should be solely focused on improving the skills and knowledge of the workers to realize their full potential (Lonial, 2013). After identification of the problem that is leading to decreasing in satisfaction scores, in this case, lack of courtesy and friendly environment, the management should focus on:
- Training employees – considering that people come from varied backgrounds as well as have a different perspective regarding customer services, the leadership o rather the management should put more emphasis on training and guiding employees on the best way to conduct themselves in front of customers and their families. As a matter of fact, not all individuals have that talent, skills, and knowledge to serve the customers by being courteous and friendly, and thus, the organization should take the time to invest in training such workers to improve the quality of service provided which improves the customer satisfaction.
- To improve customer satisfaction and relations, the care provider needs to learn to make promises to their clients – the care provider should begin by identifying what is important to the customers and then embark on a mission to create a service and behavior that is likely to make the customer happy. The management of an organization should set behavior standards for all employees to meet the needs of their clients fully. However, these standards should be flexible enough to allow changes considering that different clients have different needs and want as well as the level of satisfaction. Besides, creating and developing a written manifesto outlining the standards of behavior of all employees provides common goals and objective for the staff(Faezipour, 2013).
- Application of professionalism and use of effective communication skills throughout the customer interaction – professionalism in health care widely involves the declaration by the care providers to each other and their clients that they will uphold the shared competency standards and ethical values throughout the treatment and medication process. Promising the client that as the care provider you will do all within your power and knowledge to treat them and save their lives creates a friendly environment as well as acting as an encouragement phrase to the client and his family. Through proper communication, the client can disclose all the details the care provider needs to know to develop a treatment plan.
- Recognizing the effects of word choices, tone and attitude affect the customer experience and satisfaction – as the management of the hospital there is the need to encourage and lead by example on the word choices, tone, and attitudes that customers need to be fully satisfied. At times, a smile is all the patients’ needs to be satisfied to have a great experience in a particular hospital. The employees should be discouraged from using raised tones and showing outright negative attitude despite the current situation at hand. Rather, the care provider should always to console the patient and ensure them that everything is under control.
- The performance measure is another technique that can be used to improve courtesy of employees towards the patients. As the leader, there is the need to note and understand that customer satisfaction particularly courtesy can be measured. The health care facility should have systems and databases in place to measure courtesy through CAHPS surveys and other measurement tools. They help to obtain feedback from patients, which in turn help in identifying areas of weaknesses, thus coming up with methods and techniques to improve courtesy as well as creating a friendly and conducive environment for both workers and patients(Cina, 2013).
Related: CLINICAL SIGNIFICANCE
Part 3
Changes in organization to improve the performance
Change is necessary for any organization at any level to improve the performance of an organization. As a result, the leadership of this health care organization can utilize Kotter’s 8-step change model to ensure employee’s change their perception when it comes to courtesy and friendliness towards their patients. The leaders should be prepared to:
- Create urgency – the leaders should attempt to show their employees the need for courtesy and friendliness in their line of duty thus convincing them that there is a need for change in the way they do their business. This task can be completed through identification of risks associated with their behaviors.
- They should form a powerful coalition -leaders should provide physical evidence that the current processes in the organization are not working and change is necessary. After gaining enough support from other members through team building, the leaders can start training the employees.
- Creation of vision for a change – the leaders should attempt to link ideas and concepts to an overall vision that other staff can grasp easily and remember. A clear vision gives understanding to every individual the reason as to why they have to adopt a new way. This objective is achievable through determination of values.
- Communication of the vision – communication is the most important part of an organization. The leaders should communicate the vision to the members, frequently to ensure that they do not forget why they are doing this. This stage can be completed through often talking about the vision of the incoming change(Lonial, 2013).
- Removing obstacles – the chances are that the change is likely to face some resistance from a section of the employees and it is the duty of the leaders to reduce the obstacles if not eliminating them. There is the need to put in place the structure for a change and frequently check barriers to it, to reduce change.
- Creation of short-term wins – creating simple and short term targets acts as a motivator for the employees to adopt the change as they work towards the achievement of the long-term objective. These targets should not be ambiguous.
- Building on the change – the leader should be careful not to declare victory too early before the full implementation of the change and all the associated skills and knowledge in courtesy and friendliness. After every win, the leadership should evaluate the need for improvement to increase customer satisfaction.
- Anchoring the changes in corporate culture – making the change part of the core of the organization increases the chances of making the change stick in the minds and processes of other staff. The more support availed to the change the higher the likelihood that the change will stick(Faezipour, 2013).
Part 4
Over the years, leaders have adopted a various course of action in their attempt to bring changes in their organizations. However, to fully implement the change and reduce resistance it is necessary for the leaders to act as the forerunners and participate in training to learn the necessary skills to be courteous and create a friendly environment for the patient and their families. The departmental supervisors and heads can then spread the skills and knowledge to the rest of the staff through frequent training and workshops. Having their colleagues train them reduces chances of resistance compared to bringing a new individual from outside the organization to train them (Lonial, 2013). However, the leaders should discuss the impending change with all workers before actually implementing it to get their views and opinion. A good leadership takes the views of the employees into considering as the workforce is proving to be valuable assets nowadays. Changes are inevitable, but they should bring success as well as increasing customer satisfaction.
References
Cina, C. (2013). Creating an effective customer satisfaction program. . Journal of Consumer Marketing.
Faezipour, M. &. (2013). A system dynamics perspective of patient satisfaction in healthcare. . Procedia Computer Science, 16, , 148-156.
Lonial, S. &. (2013). Impact of service attributes on customer satisfaction and loyalty in a healthcare context. Leadership in Health Services, 28(2), , 149-166.
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