Anyone involved in health care, and particularly hospital care, knows that the term “patient satisfaction” has become a buzz phrase recently. Sadly too it’s also evolved into a bit of a bumper sticker in hospital administration circles — more about answers to lengthy questionnaires and some rather tacky gimmicks than about getting the real fundamentals of health care right. Personally I’m not a particularly big fan of the term either. Hospitals and health care are inherently very different from hotels and restaurants which practice the mantra to its extreme: relying on the fact that the customer is always right.
But unlike these customer service arenas, the goal in health care isn’t really to satisfy our customers. To draw an example (not necessarily an exact equivalent) the goal of an educational institute isn’t to satisfy students. The goal of a sports coach isn’t to satisfy the…
