In the Chicagoland metropolitan area, a noteworthy and prominent healthcare provider airs a series of radio and television commercials extolling its ability to be at “the forefront of medicine.”
It’s an ambitious claim that perhaps few are qualified to make outside of Rochester, MN, Cleveland, Baltimore, Dallas and selected medical fortresses in the Northeast and the Southwest.
As you hear the mellow waves and soulful, soothing sounds of orchestral cellos, violas and violins playing in the background, you see a group of C-suite executives and clinical specialists around a conference room table discussing some major chronic illness or injury and how they are working together to solve the problem for their patients.
To demonstrate credibility with the TV audience, the commercial identifies each person by name and title to show you that real people with real-world intelligence are working on your real-life problems so you should feel protected and safe if you should arrive at their facility in real time.
Now imagine if an august group like this were to tackle a chronic management issue — say, one involving value analysis of a clinical procedure on a particular patient, along with the products, services and technology to be used in the process.
For the record, please note that the persons featured in these publicity spots typically were the C-suite “O” types — CEO, CFO, CMO, CNO, CIO and even HR! (but no COO to no surprise) — clinical department heads, physician specialists and surgeons.
Meanwhile, infection preventionists, sterile processing managers, supply chain managers, surgical services managers, biomedical engineers, environmental services and facilities managers and value analysis experts to date have not enjoyed their time in the spotlight.
And why not? Well, conventional wisdom is that the patients and their loved ones never see these people. Perhaps more accurately is that they may “see” them but not notice or recognize them for who they are, what they do, how they impact the patient experience and most of all, why they matter. That’s the inherent problem with wisdom not extending beyond the conventional.
No one cares about back-office operations unless or until something goes wrong, or the patients and their loved ones suffer some sort of inconvenience.
Yet it’s about time they cared.
Whether we like it, acknowledge it or even accept it, social media access is forcing the patient experience on us just as public and private payers are tying reimbursement to the patient experience.
That’s why healthcare organizations should celebrate, fete and trumpet the very people who read Healthcare Purchasing News. You.
Remove the infection preventionists, sterile processing experts, environmental services and facilities management professionals, and the painful and lethal microorganisms run rampant and commit lasting damage of epidemic proportions.
Remove the supply chain managers and biomedical engineers, and clinicians won’t have the appropriate products, supplies and technology to treat and help patients heal.
Remove the surgical services managers and value analysis experts, and the organization, patients and payers lose the care process orchestration and optimal decision support necessary to match the right type of response to a particular patient. Call it the essence of precision in the personalization of patient care.
Healthcare organizations cannot afford to be patient about their patients’ experience because without satisfaction the first time, the patient’s patience with their experience drains too rapidly.
Rick Dana Barlow | Senior Editor
Rick Dana Barlow is Senior Editor for Healthcare Purchasing News, an Endeavor Business Media publication. He can be reached at [email protected].