Q&A: Providing service with a smile + what radiology gets wrong about patient satisfaction

Customer service has increasingly been a focus across healthcare, spurred by an ever-shifting competitive landscape and the growing importance of quality measures for payment. Patient satisfaction will once again be a major talking point at AHRA’s 2016 Spring Conference, which begins March 15 in Chicago.

Toby Edwards, CRA, director of imaging services at Lake Wales Medical Center in Lake Wales, Fla., is one of the speakers at the AHRA meeting. He spoke with RadiologyBusiness.com about his presentation at the conference, “The ART of Accommodation: Creating an Outstanding Customer Service Experience,” and shared what many in the imaging industry get wrong about customer service.

RadiologyBusiness.com: How has radiology’s transition from quantity to quality impacted the way customer service is viewed throughout the profession? Has it put more focus into good customer service than in the past? Can you explain?  

Toby Edwards: The patient's viewpoint, as expressed through HCAHPS (Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems) scores, now has a monetary impact. With the move away from quantity care towards quality care, CMS has signaled to providers that they are going to get more for their money. The feeling in healthcare today seems to put more emphasis on the stick that CMS is threatening providers with, but they are also offering the carrot. If we improve, if we adapt, then we grow and succeed, but more importantly, our patients are treated to kinder, safer care.

Has social media changed had a significant impact on customer service?

TE: Social media has introduced an entirely new way to broadcast your feelings. What amplifies this dynamic is that most social media reaches people closest to you who are most likely to believe your story. Patients today tell everyone they know, or loosely know, with one mouse click while ten years ago, their message was delivered one person at a time via telephone or conversation at church. There is an exponential factor at work with social media that should be treated with great respect.

Is there any aspect of customer service that you notice radiology departments and radiology practices getting “wrong” more than any others?

TE: One of the shortcomings I notice is that imaging staff could manage their message better. AIDET (Acknowledge, Introduce, Duration, Explain and Thank) is an excellent way to manage the clinical message because it sets the expectation for the procedure, but having a clear message, a distinct expression of purpose as diagnosticians, is critical to cultivating the culture of who you are and why you are here. When that is put in place, starting an IV becomes more than establishing venous access, it in fact becomes part of the fulfillment of our commitment to our patients as healers.

What advice do you have for those in leadership positions when it comes to finding and hiring employees who fit their culture and possibly letting go of employees who do not fit that culture?

TE: It is very important to quantify what your culture is, discuss it with the applicant, and ask them to affirm those values. I like to hire qualified applicants that have a positive, sunny disposition. I like to see lots of smiles from an applicant. I firmly believe in hiring the person, not the skills they possess. With concentrated effort any technologist can improve and, with time, experience increases, but an unhappy person or someone who does not enjoy serving the sick cannot be helped with educational modules or conferences.

Is there anything from your presentation that especially stands out? Something you are excited to share with everyone at the conference?

TE: Of all the patient satisfaction strategies we work hard to cultivate to improve the patient experience, having an attitude of accommodation may be the most important. In my session at the 2016 AHRA Spring Conference in Chicago, I will discuss the five key elements of an accommodating attitude and the five patient reactions that result from putting those elements into practice.

This text was edited for space and clarity.