Well, yes
The Commonwealth Fund reviewed an article from the Dana Farber Cancer Institute regarding patient reports of “incidents.” Unfortunately, the paper is not available to the public, so the following comments are based on the abstract. The authors questioned patients’ ability “to recognize such events.” In fact, they classified most complaints as related to service quality rather than medical errors or adverse events--the implication being that it’s OK to provide poor service as long as you don’t screw up the technical aspects of care. Is that possible? “If the pharmacy experiences chronic delays, how do we trust that the chemotherapy is prepared reliably?” Well, yes. If you can’t do the little things well, why should we trust you with something important? As the abstract notes, “patients view service problems as potential red flags about the quality and safety of treatment.
Interestingly, 48% of those interviewed had at least one complaint. Anyone know of another industry where almost half of the customers complain of poor service? Even the IRS gets better reviews. Actually, the graph (“Incidents per 100 patients”) seems at odds with the text and suggests that 63% of patients had a complaint. From the graph, 18% of patients experienced a medical error that either did or could have caused them harm. Must be hard to dodge those bullets while wending your way through the care process. This is a long way from Six Sigma.
Missing from the abstract is any analysis of causes or plans for improvement. They do state that 21% of service complaints resulted from poor communication. Well, yes. Perhaps ALL service complaints are due to a failure to communicate realistic expectations, like how long they will have to wait. How can you have “inadequate coffee?” Talk to McDonald’s. They do coffee really well. Surely someone could calculate how many cups of coffee will be needed each hour. Is that important? Well, yes. It shows that you care about your customers.
And, lest we forget, patients are our customers. They define what “quality care” means. No, they don’t understand some very technical aspects of care, but they do understand service, and the two are probably related. I remember a McDonald’s TV ad that said, “Sure, we make mistakes sometimes, but we fix them real fast!” From the abstract, it doesn’t seem that Dana Farber has yet acknowledged any mistakes and has no plan for corrective action.
Interestingly, 48% of those interviewed had at least one complaint. Anyone know of another industry where almost half of the customers complain of poor service? Even the IRS gets better reviews. Actually, the graph (“Incidents per 100 patients”) seems at odds with the text and suggests that 63% of patients had a complaint. From the graph, 18% of patients experienced a medical error that either did or could have caused them harm. Must be hard to dodge those bullets while wending your way through the care process. This is a long way from Six Sigma.
Missing from the abstract is any analysis of causes or plans for improvement. They do state that 21% of service complaints resulted from poor communication. Well, yes. Perhaps ALL service complaints are due to a failure to communicate realistic expectations, like how long they will have to wait. How can you have “inadequate coffee?” Talk to McDonald’s. They do coffee really well. Surely someone could calculate how many cups of coffee will be needed each hour. Is that important? Well, yes. It shows that you care about your customers.
And, lest we forget, patients are our customers. They define what “quality care” means. No, they don’t understand some very technical aspects of care, but they do understand service, and the two are probably related. I remember a McDonald’s TV ad that said, “Sure, we make mistakes sometimes, but we fix them real fast!” From the abstract, it doesn’t seem that Dana Farber has yet acknowledged any mistakes and has no plan for corrective action.
