What are They Saying About Your Hospital?
By Barbara C. Carey and Mike McCall, RN
In TCI’s experience, hospitals lose patients because of unidentified reputational issues. A hospital’s reputation depends on the experience of the patients in the Emergency Room, Surgery, Med- Surg, ICU, Laboratory, Imaging, Rehabilitation, Wound Care, Admissions, Billing, Obstetrics and other specialty services.
Sometimes poor patient experiences in any of these services leads to reputational damage. The Emergency Room with its rotating physicians and people in high stress situations often is the culprit of negative “word of mouth” in the community but sometimes it is a poorly designed admission process, unfriendly staff or physicians with poor communication skills. Sadly, even if it’s only one department that is causing distress, if the issue goes unidentified the damage continues.
Research and Media Monitoring
Research uncovers these issues that are under the radar but affecting the choice that healthcare consumers make. Once uncovered CEOs can take corrective action. Basic research methods of surveys and focus group are excellent at detecting unknown reputational issues. TCI also recommends carefully monitoring social media.
Influential Community Group
Another way to stay in touch with the community and become aware of issues is to form an influential community group outside of the hospital’s Board. This group can be instrumental bringing information to the hospital and informing the community about the hospital. This is a helpful strategy in large and smaller systems. In larger systems a community group can personalize the hospital for that community. This forum if professionally managed will make a dramatic difference in reputational strength.
In Summary...
Identifying the source of reputational damage and creating corrective action is the first step. Monitoring social media and forming an influential community group is a wise second step toward building a stellar reputation. There are many other proven strategies.
Call TCI when you are ready to begin. We have the expertise to build and enhance reputations.
We Help Our Clients Understand Their Environment and to Find Solutions.
Call Us 1-888-922-2824 or Email barbara@tciconsults.com
