Customer Service

Good morning!

Today, I’d like to talk about a topic that should be at the top of everyone’s mind at the Medical Center: customer service.

One of our many goals for improvement includes striving for exemplary customer service every single day. That’s giving our customers – our patients and their families – not only excellent health care services, but a good experience on the front and back ends. This is a fundamental building block for future success. 

Good customer service should always be a work in progress. We can always be better, and we want to be better. We’ve made strides in recent years, thanks to our leaders throughout the campus and to our employees who have a heart for service and a desire to help Mississippians become their healthiest.

In last week’s column, I highlighted a few steps we have taken to improve health care access. If we can’t get that right, then very little else we do to improve our patients’ experiences with us will have a chance to be effective. In addition to those actions, here are a few of the accomplishments we have achieved during the last couple of years that have us headed in the right direction: 

• The Medical Center implemented several MyChart enhancements, including an e-check-in option that allows patients to update and validate their information, sign consent forms and check in before their appointment. When they arrive, they simply let the front desk know, and it’s noted in their electronic medical chart.
  
  This decreases the wait time for registration and is a boon to necessary social distancing in our waiting areas. (In some instances, to continue social distancing efforts, patients are able to check in remotely from their vehicles so they don’t enter the clinic until it’s their turn.) 

• Customer service and hospitality are built into daily operations at the Sanderson Tower, which is designed with larger waiting areas and patient rooms, easily accessible parking and new amenities, such as a market coffee shop, a gift shop and a chapel. The organization of patient and caregiver spaces was carefully considered, with customer service at top of mind.
  
  Clinic space is streamlined, so patients can see multiple specialists easily. One example: Patients needing imaging as part of their appointment are only steps away from child-sized CT and MRI equipment. That’s a huge improvement compared to just a few months ago, when patients and their families would traverse more than a quarter of a mile of hospital hallways to reach an adult-sized MRI machine.
  
  Established patients can now check in at one of several kiosks located in the Sanderson Tower’s lobby – with assistance, if needed, from one of several UMMC staff on hand – and go straight to their destination. They will receive a patient pass at the kiosks bearing a bar code they can scan at the clinic to let staff know they’ve arrived.
  
  Many of the new customer service initiatives in the facility and in all pediatric areas are the result of feedback and requests from the Children’s of Mississippi Patient and Family Advisory Committee. 

• Patients enjoy both service and aesthetic improvements in the clinics at the University Physicians Pavilion and in the UP clinics at the Lakeland Medical Building. Patients have long asked for updates to make the decades-old UP Pavilion more attractive.
  
  Our patients need to feel comfortable throughout their interactions with us, from the time they call to make an appointment until they are inside any of our facilities. It’s important the way we present ourselves and our locations match the quality of care we provide. A positive patient experience is a result of a comprehensive effort.

• The Office of Patient Experience is a big part of our ongoing commitment to improving customer service throughout campus. One key area has been in wayfinding across a facility the size of a small city, where even veteran employees can get turned around when they least expect it. OPE Patient and Family Advisory Council members have made recommendations to make getting around easier in the hospitals, including additional signage in parking garages and better routes for patients and visitors to get from “point A” to “point B.”
  
  According to Skye Stoker, OPE director, the OPE also offers customer service training, with Medical Center leadership teams focusing on communications as a critical component of patient experience. Her office has increased its capture of patient feedback, sharing that data with providers and leaders in the ambulatory space.

• Cancer Center and Research Institute staff have created a quality improvement initiative to improve communication between patients and their providers during a clinic visit. The goal of the project, piloted in Thoracic Oncology, is to make sure patients know their concerns are being heard.
  
  Patients in the exam room were asked to write down three questions, problems or concerns they wished to discuss with their provider during their visit. The card was signed by their caregiver and turned in by the patients at checkout. Suggestions made on the cards slowed down the providers so they could demonstrate to their patients that they respected their time and valued the chance to listen to their concerns.
  
  The result: Patient experience scores related to communication quality, careful listening, respect and time spent with patients during a visit improved.

• In 2020, Dermatology faculty and staff spent three months sharply focusing on improving the department’s culture. They wanted to boost communication, morale and engagement, factors that ultimately translate into improved patient care.
  
  Dermatology saw improvements in communication, although social distancing made it challenging. Employees know that culture is something to be cultivated, and they gladly are continuing that process.

Providing stellar customer service is a job that never ends, but we keep setting goals to make that journey successful. Our work areas include improving patients’ access to care and incorporating telehealth visits into our workflows so that it becomes a routine choice for our patients and providers.

Our responsibility to give patients and families the best experience possible, even when their illness or injury is heartbreaking, is sacred. We strive to get better together as we pursue our overarching goal of A Healthier Mississippi.