Oh, to be an animal
Judy Foreman in the Boston Globe asked, Why can't people hospitals be more like those for animals? Consider:
- When her cat was in the hospital, the cardiologist called her twice a day with updates
- Other staffers called during the day with updates, and she could call in any time and have updates read to her off the computer
Foreman interviewed a Harvard School of Public Health professor, whose dog was hospitalized.
"The cardiology resident called me every single day. Yet I've had the personal experience with human relatives where I could never get through to the physician or resident." Discharge instructions...are..."better in well-trained veterinary programs than in many discharges from [people's] hospitals."
A lot of the usual excuses for poor service in people hospitals are trotted out:
- Fear of lawsuits
- Paperwork
- Low reimbursement
- Privacy rules
- Complexity
But I think the real answer is we could do better if we made customer service a higher priority. That's why I favor efforts by CMS to reward hospitals financially based on patients' satisfaction with their experience.