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Thread: Patients are our customer's

  1. #1
    Member Extraordinaire hppygr8ful's Avatar
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    Patients are our customer's

    I have been thinking about this a lot these days.

    I didn't become a nurse until I was almost 40 years old and had many jobs over the years where "the customer was always right!" While this was annoying at times it kept people polite and in "service" mode.

    In the area of nursing where I work our patients are reffered to as consumers not patients. I think if we thought of our patients as customers we would be more mindful of how we do our jobs. Of course even people with insurance have very little choice as they are told which doctors they can use and which hospitals they can go to, even which medications they are allowed to take. Most of us who have fought with insurance companies, Medicare, Medicaid would walk out if we were treated the same way in a restaurant.

    We are given fewer actual choices in our healthcare and the so-called reform gives us even fewer choices yet. We deal with people at the most vulnerable moments of their lives. We need to keep the compassion in nursing!!!!

    Anyone else feel as I do?

    Peace and Namaste

    Hppy

  2. #2
    Super Moderator cougarnurse's Avatar
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    To me, consume means to eat.

    I do agree with you, wholeheartedly. Many times the meds the insurance will pay for are NOT what will ultimately work for the patient, etc. etc.

    Let me think on things, and perhaps I can 'thunk' something up.

  3. #3
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    I feel that way you do!

    I think that looking at patients as customers is a great way to motivate nurses who may not do what is best for their patient because it is hard or difficult. It is ridiculous how lazy some people can be. The insurance companies are a whole different issue.

    I think that there still needs to be compassion in nursing. If only it was a requirement. Without compassion, we have upset patients and upset nurses. We need nurses that genuinely care for their patients and will stop at nothing to help them.

  4. #4
    patients are customers, in some respect, patients are customers, probably thinking in this way would be good to nurses.
    we have a saying; Customers are God. we need offer them good and considerable services.

  5. #5
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    I think there is a lot of customer service principles that can be applied to nursing. Nurses are clearly the obvious choice for this role, as well, with the direct care we provide. If such a mindset helps to motivate a nurse, maybe even give her or him a new outlook on nursing, then I'm all for it.

  6. #6
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    I don't disagree with healthcare being a service industry but I don't think that operating the system as a business has caused it to be better. Hospitals, rehabs, physician practices are all competing for market share. Who has the newest "painless" (really???) surgical techniques? Frappachino machines and cookies in the waiting rooms. Hideaway medical equipment so as not to detract from the ambiance.- let me just take my contaminated hand and pull open that drawer to throw out this dressing. Upholstered furniture (to make it homelike) in rooms where there will be drainage, incontinence, etc. You get the picture. I think the pendulum has swung too far in the other direction. It is entirely possible to soften the medical environment without compromising its optimal functionality. We just need to go back to what the honorable art of medicine once used to be. I know, not simple but I think it's the truth. Oh, and call the regulatory dogs off the treatment centers a little and sick them on the legal industry. Then those who know best can be permitted to create that new and better system.
    Last edited by Ricu; 04-27-2012 at 07:41 AM.

  7. #7
    Member Extraordinaire hppygr8ful's Avatar
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    You make some very valid points especially from an infection control standpoint. Medicine certainly cannot be treated like a business in the broadeast sense - because the patient gets lost in the bottom line. It is just that medical care is a servive we pay for (like it or not) if I received similar service in a restaurant I would walk out, in a bank I would take my money elsewhere etc...

  8. #8
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    Quality service is the absolute bottom line. Patients being able to actively choose their providers does create the competition but that competition aught to be in who ultimately renders the best care, not cable TV advertising, mailers with coupons, cool pens and other giveaways. I won't even address waiting room goodies.

  9. #9
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    This customer service stuff in the hospital has gone too far.............we are suppose to bend over backwards for vistors and family members,,I don't have time and I'm not a hostess, waitress, just a nurse..............who now works nights to avoid the nonsense.

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