Health Service Management
Subtopic:
Customer Care

CUSTOMER CARE
Introduction
Provision of quality health care is one of the top priority in the National Health Policy.
While hospitals are performing a valuable service to the public, stakeholders, including the public itself, are unsatisfied and complaining.
Media reports always portray negative publicity and image regarding health care providers
This is because the services provided are not focused on the client’s expectations and the services are not attractively presented to the clients.
Surveys on customer satisfaction done elsewhere found un-met non-health expectations such as dignity, basic human needs, human rights, prompt attention in care, treatment, confidentiality, communication and autonomy are contributing factors to customer blames and complains.
For these reasons, BMC department of Nursing conducted a min research to find out clients satisfaction on the services we provide where findings showed customer dissatisfaction in same non-health expectations.
To address this problems the department initiated customer care orientation classes to nurses, same sessions are conducted to newly employed nurses/medical attendants during induction course.
Out of 376 nurses 193 have been oriented (51.3%).
Definition
Customers to us are people who receive healthcare services. Every patient, family member, visitors, cooperate representative and co-worker.
Quality: The Standard of something as measured against other things of a similar kind; the degree of excellence
Quality health Care: Means doing the right thing, at the right time, in the right way for the right person and having the best possible results.
Types of customers
They are two types:
- External Customers: Patients/Clients/Community receiving services
- Internal customers: Health workers within the Institution including
Why Quality Improvement
To ensure the following:
- Safety – avoiding injuries to patients from the care that is intended to help
- Effective – Providing services based on scientific knowledge to all who could benefit and refraining from providing services to those not likely.
- Patient-centered – Providing services that is respectful of and responsive to individual patient preferences, needs and values.
- Timely – reducing waits and sometimes delays for both those who receive and those who give care.
- Avoid unnecessarily long waits for registration, payments, consultations, lab results, surgery etc. Eliminate processes that don’t add value to employees, patients or your workflow.
- Efficient – avoiding waste, including waste of equipment, supplies, ideas and (achieved through 5S)
- Equitable – Providing care that does not vary in quality because of personal characteristics such as gender, ethnicity, geographic location, and socio-economic.
Why customer satisfaction?
- Efforts to deliver customer oriented services are a key to any quality
- Services that do not meet customer needs/expectations
- To provide quality services we need to better understand our customer
- Quality care provision is our promise to the
- We need to understand our customers so that we can anticipate their needs and
- A blame free environment leads to improved transparency, improved systems and, ultimately to better results.
Methods of assessing customer satisfaction
- Complaint monitoring
- Interviews
- Focus groups
- Satisfaction surveys
- Quality indicators
- Internal audit
- Management review
Basic needs of customers
- Need to feel in control
- Need to feel that their actions are directed toward their goals
- Want to be treated fairly and appropriately
- Want to know what is happening and why
- Want to feel safe and secure
- Want to feel important, recognized and appreciated
What matters most to Healthcare Customers
- Empathy
- Showing Compassion
- Courtesy and respect
- Dignity – privacy, confidentiality
- Responsiveness of hospital staff
- Learn to apologize in case of delayed services for whatever the
- Good customer service- reception & communication
- Information
- Building trust
- Explanation in easy to understand terms from healthcare workers
- Pain relief
- Clean/Safe environment (5S&IPC)
Communicating effectively
We can achieve customer satisfaction by using the following communication Tips:
- Establish rapport
- Listen attentively
- Ask questions to check understanding
- Answer the way you’re asked
- Reflecting
- Clarifying
- Using non-verbal
- Don’t judge
- Don’t use jargon
The importance for informed care
- Builds good interpersonal relationship
- Prepares patient/client psychologically and physically
- Eliminates complains
- Promotes patients satisfaction
How do we know whether our customers are satisfied or not?
To provide services that are customer oriented we need to develop habit of gaining feedback from our customers.
Feedback from customers can be gained through
- Survey Questionnaires
- Interview – exit
- Suggestion box
- Focus Group Discussion
- Community Forum
- Key Informants
- Community members of health committees
Why gain feedback from customers?
- Understand customer’ needs
- Feedback enhances customer loyalty and customers will recommend institution to
- Feedback can tell you things you may not know, including human factors such as staff
- Feedback can be used to analyze
- Customers feel valued
- Promotes a sense of responsive customer service within the organization
- Promotes contact, communication and improve relationship with customers
Benefits of good customer care
- Increased Efficiency
- Employee Motivation
- Customer loyalty – Customers recommend services to others
- Enhance public image – and provides protection if there is a slip-up in customer service
- More effective workforce – satisfied customers create a positive working environment
- Staff who deliver good customer service receive their customers’ appreciation and are further motivated to offer good customer service.
- Good customer care contributes to customer
- Reduced Employee Turnover
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