According to data published by the Medical Group Management Association (MGMA),

Question

According to data published by the Medical Group Management Association (MGMA), better performing medical practices follow the 14 characteristics on page 60 of your textbook. Two of them are: the entire staff focuses on customer service, and a culture of respect is in place. Your investigation into your practice uncovers two problem areas in your office: customer service is poor (include patient “wait times” in your discussion) and culture has led to low retention (both physicians and staff).

Discuss each of the following questions separately (use these HEADINGS ONLY - do not make-up your own words):

Discuss your efforts and steps to rectify the two situations referenced above.

1. How would you address them?

2. Why it is important to resolve these two problem areas?

3. What systems, solutions or activities should be implemented to prevent or improve each problem area?

4. What and how do you monitor each area?

5. What changes would you make to each problem area, if initial solution(s) is not working?

Explanation / Answer

The importance of health care services is one of the fundamental rights of an individual in developed nations of the world .The medical practice organisations like any other service industry has enormous pressure of quality service delivery to its clients.Quality of administration of health care systems can greatly affect service outcomes, patient satisfaction, Organisation's reputation as a care provider and quality of care it provides.Any lag in the system of administration and integration of the organisation may lead to underwhelming service quality and will result in poor management of the whole system.

For any service company be it medical practice or any other the customer/client and the Staff and employee both are external and internal customers respectively hence both of them are inter-related as far as service quality are concerned. Dissatisfaction of staff will inevitably lead to poor service quality.

The investigation into the given organisation uncovers two problem areas in office in the given case: customer service is poor and culture has led to low retention.Lets discuss both one by one.

Problem .1 : Customer service is poor

Delivering excellent customer service is a challenge in every service industry, without exception and it is even more critical in health care industry because any lag in service in this indistry may lead to fatal results for the patients as it is a matter of life-and-death .Patient/customer satisfaction is the very important parameter for assesing the quality of service being provided by a service provider . Providing quality, evidence-based, patient-centered care is the most important role of any medical practice center.

The following are the major steps which can be taken to improve the customer satisfaction score of the given center:

Problem .2 :   Culture has led to low retention

As discussed above we know that the internal customer of any organisation are its employees and they are eqally important to the organisation. Any disrespect or dissatisfaction to them will lead to falling of the standards of their service and in some cases rise in attrition rates. Its obvious that a dissatisfied employee will not be able to satisfy its clients as well as both are inter connected and in particular to the health care service patients interface is always the staff and practitioners so this makes it even more important to keep the staff and doctors well equipped and alert to take the challenge of the services to be given to the patients. The following are few practice which will improve the wellness of the staff and employees:

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