About A. Woodward & Associates Our company’s primary focus is to help clients develop healthy patient and staff relationships. Our consulting services are customized to your organization, and your specific needs. Areas of expertise include customer service, patient satisfaction and employee engagement. A. Woodward & Associates was established in 1999 by Anita B. Woodward, MBA, FACHE. Based in Cleveland, Ohio, we have clients in all parts of the country. Anita has over 20 years of healthcare management, customer service, and human resource experience, and her associates have a variety of complementary skills and experiences.
October 2009 Newsletter
A. Woodward & Associates Celebrates 10th Anniversary! We are proud and happy to be celebrating the 10th Anniversary of our company, and want to thank all the clients and friends who have trusted us, encouraged us and hired us over the past 10 years. Some of our accomplishments over these years included: Working with so many wonderful clients Launching our electronic newsletter in 2002 Presenting at dozens of educational conferences Anita Woodward's receipt of Fellow designation from the American College of Healthcare Executives, and presidency of her local chapter of ACHE Receipt of the Ruth Ravich Founder's Award from the Society for Healthcare Consumer Advocacy; SHCA's highest honor Appointment as a part-time faculty member at Cleveland State University Involvement in our first webinar Anita Woodward's receipt, in 2008, of the ACHE Regent's Senior-Level Healthcare Executive Award Creation of Phone Mystery Shopping service (see related article in this newsletter) Please join us in celebrating this milestone year! As our way of thanking all of our supporters, we are offering one hour of free phone consultation to any newsletter subscriber who contacts us by the end of November and mentions this article.
What's New at A. Woodward & Associates New Associates Featured on Web Site A. Woodward & Associates is happy to announce the addition of two of our associates to our web site, AnitaWoodward.com. Read about Barbara Cady and Dr. Patricia Gray, each of whom have many years of experience in healthcare, bringing special skills and abilities that add a new dimension to our work. Barbara has worked extensively with physicians and has expanded the scope of Phone Mystery Shopping, while Patricia has a rich background in education, cultural assessment, and nursing. Phone Mystery Shopping We have recently enhanced our Phone Mystery Shopping services, which offer a great way to assess the quality of the communication skills of your phone receptionists. We have tools that help you measure if people are asking the right questions and gathering the important information you want to collect. We can help you determine what to measure and how to measure it. We create customized reports that give you the information necessary to improve or to assure consistent quality. Please contact us by email or phone (216-631-1852) to talk about how we can help you be service leaders on the phone!
Improve Customer Service by Having Staff Hold Each Other Accountable Whether your customers are patients or colleagues, providing excellent service is the expectation these days. The patient’s experience is being measured and publicly reported, and research shows that internal customers give better service when they receive better service from each other. Managers cannot be watching every customer encounter in their department. Training in expectations helps, but new habits are hard to form without reinforcement. One great way to reinforce good and reduce poor behavior is to teach staff to hold each other accountable. Holding co-workers accountable does not come naturally to most of us. Staff members are reluctant to have a conversation that may lead to a confrontation or to poor working relationships. Overcome this reluctance by including everyone in a planned approach to holding each other accountable, giving all staff members some training in how to do it, and then supporting them as they try. Here are some tips to get you started: Train everyone, and make it clear that everyone is involved. This is not just about "good" employees holding "bad" employees accountable. Emphasize that accountability is not just negative; people should give positive feedback for good behaviors they observe Discuss how and when to give positive and negative (constructive) feedback Give people sample scripts. Provide training that includes role-playing. Consider sharing the following ideas when training staff at your facility...
Positive Feedback Positive feedback when people do good things is powerful. To give positive feedback: Be immediate. Be specific about the behavior you saw. End with thanks or why it's nice.
Corrective Feedback How can we intervene when someone's behavior does not meet our standards? What can we say or do? Any approach needs to be clear that the behavior is not acceptable. Just as with giving positive feedback, remember to be as immediate and specific as possible. With that in mind, choose an approach that matches the situation and your relationship with the other person. Gentle, Questioning Approach Use this approach if you know the person well enough to know this behavior is not normal for them. "Wow, Juan. You must be having a bad day. The big sigh and tone of      voice thing isn't like you. Are you ok?" This can be effective because it is sympathetic and assumes they know better. If something is wrong, you might offer to help them get through the day. Humorous Approach Use this if you think the bad behavior you are seeing may be unintentional. This approach may be used alone, or as the beginning of a direct conversation where you state what you have observed. "Whoa, did you get up on the wrong side of the bed this morning?" Direct Approach Use this when you know this person often uses poor service behaviors, or when this incident seems fairly serious. "Mary, I don't think you realized it, but I think that last lady was hurt      by the fact that you never really looked at her, or smiled at her the      whole time you were doing your task. Making eye contact and smiling      are important parts of our Service Standards because we know they are      important to our customers." Peer Pressure Approach Use this when the person using poor service behavior is part of your work group. Most people want to be liked by their group, so this can work well. "Pedro, in this department we work really hard to give great service.      Please be sure you always ask the nurses if there is anything else they      need before you hang up after they call us for help." Buddy System Use this with a co-worker you work closely with. You can then help each other improve your customer service skills. "Mohun, can we work together on something? This new standard about      ___________ will be a new habit for both of us. What if we have a sign      we can give each other as a reminder when we need to do this? I think      it will help me get into the new habit, and it might help you, too." Telling a Supervisor Use this as a last resort, when someone does something significantly wrong or when you have already spoken to the person repeatedly about this behavior. Be prepared to give specific examples to the supervisor.
A. Woodward & Associates would be happy to help you implement a planned program of Holding Each Other Accountable, or can provide you with additional ideas on different ways of talking with people about their behaviors. Please email us or call - 216-631-1852.
Upcoming Speaking Engagements Anita Woodward, FACHE, will be speaking in the following locations this Fall. Please stop by to visit, and let her know how we can make our e-newsletter and our consulting services more useful to you. October 28, 2009 - Webinar for the Society for Healthcare Consumer Advocacy (SHCA). "Improving the Patient and Family Experience: Becoming a Change Agent"  This one-hour webinar will be broadcast at 2:00 pm eastern time. For more information or to register, go to shca-aha.org. November 18, 2009, Press Ganey Client Conference, National Harbor, MD. At this year's annual meeting Anita will present "How to Successfully Engage Employees." For more information, go to pressganey.com.
Case Study
The following situation really occurred. Consider using it as a case study for quick discussions in staff meetings. A family arrived to visit in an infection-controlled hospital room. They were told to wash and gown, and did so. The elderly husband of the patient needed to use the bathroom during the visit, and did so in the patient's bathroom. When he flushed, alarms buzzed and lights flashed. The staff came running, and the elderly man, confused and frightened, stood with his hands up in the air saying, "I didn't take anything, I just flushed the toilet." What assumptions do we make about things our customers "know" about how we do business? How do we react when a customer violates one of our rules? How do we respond when a customer is obviously embarrassed by something they did not know about our norms? Does our failure to communicate ever make extra work for us?
Story ideas, case studies wanted! We are looking for good case studies to share, and we always want to publish articles that answer your questions or help with your challenges. Please email us with your ideas. Thanks.
About This Newsletter This newsletter is published for clients and colleagues of A. Woodward & Associates, and for others who are interested in customer service, employee relations, and organizational communication, especially in healthcare organizations. If you would like to add someone to our subscriber list, please contact us at anita@anitawoodward.com(or simply reply to this email). Be sure to provide the subscriber's name and organization. If this newsletter is reaching you in error, we apologize. To unsubscribe, please email us and put "Unsubscribe" in the subject line.