The Culture of Customer Satisfaction

colorful-1302153Recent trends in the business literature show a significant focus on the mechanics of the culture of organizations. Annual training reinforcing the quality and compliance requirements of organizations is a common end-of-year task. To provide some context for the training, it is important to look at the synergy between the cultures of compliance and quality, and how that synergy supports customer satisfaction. Continue reading

Harnessing Early Adopters in Health IT

adult-american-black-and-white-935870Part of the thrill of working in health IT comes from bringing something more than just a cool widget to market. As a nurse myself, I want to help fellow clinicians with software that solves problems. And, as part of the development process, we seek to partner with health systems to address their specific challenges.

Of course, not every health system can serve as an IT partner – but luckily, some customers are in a position to play a larger role by acting as early adopters. Continue reading

The Measurement of Healthcare Quality

What is quality? The dictionary defines quality as “a peculiar and essential qualitycharacteristic; an inherent feature; or a degree of excellence.” For many charged with leading quality in healthcare, quality is often measured as a success in certification, a successful audit, or decreasing rejections. Instead, quality should be measured by what is experienced directly by the customer, the “value added” of what was received, and/or the perception of provider that was involved in the interaction, as both are customers of the healthcare institution.

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How Can Hospital Culture Drive Improved Patient Care?

What makes a hospital great? hearth-1674896_960_720Each year, a variety of industry lists designate which hospitals are ‘the best,’ including U.S. News & World Report rankings, CMS star ratings, Leapfrog grades and Truven Health Analytics. While many of these rankings use important metrics such as excellence in clinical care, patient outcomes and physician satisfaction, they often fail to recognize the intangible piece of what it truly takes to make a great hospital – culture. Great hospitals embrace foundational values that support day-to-day operations and encourage innovative ideas for continuous improvement.

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