Patient Satisfaction & Thoughts on Improvement

Hospitals can always improve when it comes to patient satisfaction.

Administrators and consultants are always looking for ways to become an even better provider to their patients. With ever changing technology and new requirements for documentation, it can make it even more difficult to achieve high patient satisfaction. As a writer for MedCity News put it, “ I’ve felt that there’s not been enough next-generation tech being applied to the low margin, high volume business of hospital supply management.” Supply chain automation is important to gain higher patient satisfaction, and even though it is often viewed as being the responsibility of the administration, it is directly tied to patient and nursing satisfaction.

• Supply chain expert Harold Richards explains that thinking about patient satisfaction and supply chain can be compared to ant hill management:“You may have had an ant farm as a child and marveled at the cooperative efforts and precisions of the ants as they went about their daily activities...so it is with the hospital supply chain, full of hard working individuals who run into daily challenges just as ants do. Both rely on excellent systems of communication to get things accomplished. However, ants do not have to deal with bureaucracy, integrating of mismatched systems, missing supplies, and other time-wasting system failures (at least not as far as we can tell).”

The ant farm comparison seems to be on point when it comes to managing busy ER departments and the like. Today more than ever, patients are converging on emergency rooms across the country seeking treatment for their ailments. Resulting from this is - you guessed it- overcrowded ERs filled to capacity and short staffed in many cases. According to the USA TODAY, some hospitals are faced with spikes as high as 12%.

It is apparent that an increase in volume can cause problems, and without proper planning and supply chain management, there could be inefficiencies such as shortage of staff and medical supplies in emergency situations. So, look at hospital management from the ant farm perspective if you will...it might just make it a little clearer...and little more fun to analyze efficiency. Make sure you know what is happening in your ant hill.