“If you’re in a horror movie, you make poor decisions. It’s what you do.” A group of kids are running from a murderer in the middle of the woods when they stumble upon an old cabin. “Let’s hide in the attic. No, in the basement.” One woman starts breaking down and is in tears: “Why […]
What’s The Missing Link With Healthcare Consumerism?
All things being equal. We use that phrase a lot. It occurred to me that the only reason to use the phrase is that more often than not, all things are not equal. In healthcare, experiences never equal expectations. The last best experience that anyone has anywhere becomes the minimum expectation for the experience they […]
How To Hire A Patient Experience Officer
I was making dinner the other night and was reminded of a story I heard on NPR. The narrator and his wife were talking about their 50-year marriage. One of the stories the husband mentioned concerned his wife’s meatloaf. Their recipe for meatloaf was one they had learned from his wife’s mother. Over the years […]
How EDs Can Embrace The Minute Clinic Model
I try to avoid thinking too hard about problems. I have found that not thinking, when done properly, creates a pleasant numbing sensation in the brain. There are those who will tell you that not thinking is one of my best attributes. So this is how I’ve organized this anthill. A healthcare provider’s opportunity to succeed at […]
15 Ways To Guarantee A Great Patient Experience
Chances are your health system’s website is a clunky old thing designed by the elderly (people over the age of 30). The time to rethink what you want out of your website has come and gone; that train already left the station. The only way to play catch-up is to dump the sclerotic vision that defines your […]
Is Your Health System The Next Radio Shack?
Here Comes The Second Wave
One of the strangest things about tsunamis is that the most damage is always the result of the second wave, a wave that catches survivors of the first wave by surprise. If I was a healthcare executive, I would have spotters positioned along the beaches looking for wave number two. Instead, many appear to be taking […]
What Are Public Speaking’s Critical Success Factors?
Over the last few months, a few readers wrote asking about a post of mine regarding speaking in public. For those who get nervous about speaking in public, let’s recognize that unless you are being filmed for the Discovery Channel’s television show Life Below Zero, you speak in public every day — to your friends, family, […]
How Prepared Is Your Health System To Compete?
A Collection of Snapshots
I was showing my children photographs of me at a younger age; some of them black and white, affixed to heavy stock page that had yellowed over time. Snapshots of what was. Single depictions of specific events at specific times, none of them betraying or foretelling my future. The photo album chronicled parts of my life, those […]