Sarah Chaput, practice assistant, rehabilitation services, is a graduate of BIDMC’s service initiative.

Employees Create Service Initiative

BIDMC’s staff have always enjoyed a reputation for providing compassion and wonderful care. Now they are finding new ways to ensure excellent service.
A year ago a group of employees with a passion for customer service formed the Service Quality Initiatives Group (SQIG). The group’s members include Sue Blood, patient access service; Kerry Brown and Amy B. Goldman, ambulatory operations; David Clough, hospitality services; Claire Gerstein, health care quality; Susan Lubars, office of the president; and Dan Dangler and Amy Wasserman, organizational development.

“The group had a great idea for a program to train outpatient staff in service quality, allowing them to be more service-oriented in their daily work,” says Ken Sands, M.D., vice president of health care quality. “The best thing is that this idea came from within, from employees who are really familiar with the medical center.” 

The group felt strongly that the training should be facilitated by BIDMC staff who knew firsthand the challenges medical center employees face. The goal of the training: to provide staff and managers in outpatient areas with tools to better serve BIDMC’s customers, defined as patients, families, visitors and co-workers.
Each training session teaches staff how to listen so that customers feel heard and how to communicate in a positive manner. Employees also learn strategies for managing challenging interactions and develop problem-solving skills through role playing. Participant response has been extremely positive.

To reinforce the skills taught in this program, employees who have attended the four-hour training are invited to participate in a monthly Service Quality Forum, facilitated by a SQIG trainer. They are encouraged to present difficult customer service situations they have encountered. The group then examines different ways of handling each situation to achieve the best outcome.

Currently about 475 front line staff and 50 managers in outpatient areas have received training. SQIG is developing additional follow-up services to further reinforce skills, and is responding to many requests from departments throughout the medical center.
Jayne Sheehan, vice president of ambulatory and emergency services, says, “I am pleased with the feedback I have received from staff and managers who have attended Service Excellence training. I look forward to continued work with SQIG to keep the momentum going and this initiative moving forward.”


Medical Center Receives Five Star Award

Professional Research Consultants, Inc. (PRC), an independent firm that conducts inpatient satisfaction surveys at hospitals nationwide, has awarded BIDMC its Five Star Customer Service Award in Overall Quality of Care — the highest award in its most important category. The award is based on the percentage of patients who rated their hospital experience as “excellent” in overall quality.

BIDMC also placed in the top 10 percent of PRC hospitals for overall quality of physician care, and in the top 5 percent for overall quality of nursing care. When patients were asked about their willingness to recommend the medical center to family or friends, BIDMC placed among the top 5 percent of hospitals in the survey.

BIDMC’s survey scores have consistently ranked the medical center among the top 10 percent of the several hundred hospitals surveyed throughout the country by PRC. Joe M. Inguanzo, Ph.D., president and CEO of PRC, notes, “We conduct patient satisfaction research for some of the most prestigious hospitals and health care systems in the nation, and — as your high patient satisfaction scores attest — Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center is most certainly at par with the best.”