Endowment launches program to improve ‘service culture’

Companies such as Nordstrom, Microsoft and Ritz-Carlton are legendary for their efforts to help employees at every level understand that exemplary customer service is essential to their success. Training and incentive programs emphasize this fact, including special programs that recognize and reward workers who go out of their way to make a positive difference for customers.

Now, thanks to the generosity of a $2 million gift from private donors, members of the public soon should begin to see evidence of similar customer service improvements at the UW’s two medical centers and associated clinics throughout King County. The goal is to enhance what experts call the “service culture” in each encounter patients and visitors have with health care providers and staff, alike.

“These donors’ wonderful gift should enable us to create new services that will make a substantial, positive difference over time, both to the people who work here and, above all, to those who come to us as patients and visitors,” said Dr. Paul Ramsey, vice president for medical affairs and dean of the School of Medicine.

Ramsey has appointed an academic medical center Service Culture Committee chaired by John Coulter, associate vice president for medical affairs and executive director of Health Sciences Administration, to implement new programs with income from the endowment. The committee has met several times to discuss imaginative, practical and visible ways of enhancing the service culture at UW medical centers and clinics.

“We’re working on guidelines, for example, to enable us to acknowledge exceptional sensitivity to patient needs and reinforce the importance of customer service by rewarding unusual acts of kindness toward patients and visitors,” Coulter said.

While details have yet to be completed, such “acts” could be rewarded (and reinforced) by a coupon, say, that would give the employee and a guest a dinner at a nice local restaurant, Coulter explained. Other employee and departmental recognition will be given monthly and annually.

“We also want to encourage units to apply for one-time funds from this endowment that they can use to implement model service culture improvements in their own areas,” Coulter said. “People in every unit should be able to think of things that they always have wanted in order to help make their patients and visitors feel more welcome and comfortable, but that they haven’t been able to obtain due to budget constraints.”

Another component of the program will be service recovery: making up for a patient or visitor’s negative experience. “Inevitably, people are under stress when visiting a health-care setting, and sometimes this leads to misunderstandings and confusion,” Coulter said. “If we think we could have done more to prevent or resolve the problem, we want to find ways to say we’re sorry and that we will try harder next time: perhaps a bouquet of flowers on the doorstep when you return home, for example.”

In addition to Coulter, Service Culture Committee members are: L.G. Blanchard, director, Health Sciences and Medical Affairs News and Community Relations; Bruce Ferguson, assistant vice president for medical affairs; Tomi Hadfield, chief operating officer, Harborview Medical Center; Dr. Tom Norris, associate dean of medicine and medical executive, UW Physicians Network; Dr. Carlos Pellegrini, Henry N. Harkins professor and chair of the Department of Surgery; Kathleen Sellick, associate executive director and chief operating officer, UW Medical Center; and Marjorie Wenrich, director, Clinical Skills Assessment Program in the School of Medicine. ¶