Patient satisfaction rises in importance for hospitalists

Here are Dr. Short’s dos and don’ts for improving the patient experience.

• Knock on the patient’s door before going in. By doing that you are asking the patient’s permission to come in and showing them respect.

• Introduce yourself and hand out a brochure explaining the hospitalist program. A lot of patients still don’t know what a hospitalist program is and that it’s the hospitalist’s job to communicate with their primary care physician.

• Offer patients and their family members a business card with a photo.

• Connect on a personal level by talking about something other than the patient’s medical care. Ask about the food. How is the TV? It only takes a second to ask.

• Use props to your advantage. Whiteboards in the room are a great place to put the physician’s name and facts about the plan of care. But if the whiteboard isn’t filled out or up-to-date, it can be worse than having no board at all. So make sure it is updated and that all the hospitalists have a steady supply of markers.

• Get a chair and sit down. If you remain standing during the visit, it looks like you want to be somewhere else. Always make sure your patients feel that you have as much time as they need, even if you don’t.

• Never pass a call light. This takes a lot of collaboration by all the providers on the floor. But when hospital staff members pass their room when the call light is on, it makes them feel abandoned.

• Never tell a patient that you are so busy or that you have so many patients. "They don’t want to hear it. What they want to hear is that they are either the most important patient to you or they want to feel like they are the only patient you have to take care of," Dr. Short said. Telling patients about your busy schedule is the surest way to see your scores plummet.

mschneider@frontlinemedcom.com

On Twitter @MaryEllenNY