Why You Need to Know About Healthcare’s Service Fanatics

Many patients feel cold, frightened and helpless in the healthcare setting. Who hasn’t had the experience of sitting alone in an examination room, dressed in a flimsy gown, waiting, wondering what comes next? In 2009, one of America’s leading hospitals undertook a remarkable transformation to make sure no patient was ever left “in the cold” again. You can read the story in the powerful new book, Service Fanatics: How to Build Superior Customer Service the Cleveland Clinic Way, by James Merlino. MD.

“Patients are not objects, numbers or diseases,” says Dr. Merlino, the colorectal surgeon who was appointed to lead Cleveland Clinic’s Office of Patient Experience in 2009. “They are people we encounter during the most challenging and difficult time in their lives.”

Why the patient experience truly matters

Service Fanatics begins with Dr. Merlino’s own searing experience as a family member, watching his father die in the hospital, uncomforted by simple gestures and services that might have eased his final days. It tells how Cleveland Clinic CEO and President Toby Cosgrove, MD, was shocked into greater awareness of patient experience by the daughter of a potential patient who challenged him to “teach empathy.”

In chapter after chapter, Service Fanatics shows how Cleveland Clinic revolutionized its culture around the mantra “patients first” to make each one of its 40,000 employees into a “caregiver” with a personal commitment to better service.

“Everyone from the parking lot attendant to the surgeon, should understand why patient-centered care is important, regardless of whether they have a personal connection to the issue of patient experience,” says Dr. Merlino.

Making change happen in your organization

Service Fanatics gives you a step-by-step blueprint for the transformation of any business or organization into a customer satisfaction powerhouse. It shares the insights that enabled Dr. Cosgrove to mobilize his huge institution at every level, and move Cleveland Clinic’s patient satisfaction scores from among the nation’s lowest percentile to among the highest.

Healthcare providers ignore the message of Service Fanatics at their peril. Today’s patients have more voice in choosing their doctors and hospitals than ever before, and government and other payers have begun penalizing providers who fall short in patient satisfaction. In the larger sphere, the internet and social media have ushered in a new age of transparency. Shortcomings in service and experience that might have gone unrecorded in the past can travel around the world overnight, and affect your reputation forever.

“At Cleveland Clinic, we base our case for treating the whole patient on several principles,” says Dr. Cosgrove, “not the least of which is that it is the right thing to do.”

Service Fanatics: How to Build Superior Customer Service the Cleveland Clinic Way is published by McGraw-Hill Professional. It is available in print and eBook for purchase at amazon.com, or wherever books are sold.