Customer Experience in Hospitals: Why Bathrooms Matter!

Bathroom Blogfest 2010: Customer Experience in Hospitals… Why Bathrooms Matter!

Today’s post is my first experience with Bathroom Blogfest, which I understand has been going on since 2006, and offers insights from bloggers from around the globe talking about – you guessed it – bathrooms. I think the original focus was around bathrooms and the retail customer experience, but here I am, a healthcare technology blogger, going to make a “go” at this (pun very much intended). So… hospitals, bathrooms and customer experience – what could possibly be the connection?

Well, actually, measuring patient satisfaction in hospitals is a key metric for most hospital administrators, and the hospital bathroom is large part of that experience!

You may not be aware, but most hospitals have surveyed patients for their own internal use for years to ascertain patient satisfaction with their experience at the hospital. The objective is to obtain a patient’s overall rating of the hospital, and learn whether the patient would recommend it to friends and family. You would think that a patient’s perception of a hospital would be based on the clinical care they received while there, right? Well, actually, not really. Patients assume they will receive high quality clinical care at the hospital and really have no basis to compare the efficacy of their care. Unless they experience a serious clinical error, the actual clinical experience would be rated as excellent (e.g., “I went in for an appendectomy, my appendix was removed, I woke up in recovery = excellent clinical experience”).

Studies have shown that patients' perception of their hospital experience actually has to do with the following eight key topics: communication with doctors, communication with nurses, responsiveness of hospital staff, pain management, communication about medicines, discharge information, cleanliness of the hospital environment, and quietness of the hospital environment.

In 2006, in an effort to create a national standard for collecting and publicly reporting information about patient experience of hospital care, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) introduced The HCAHPS (Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems) survey. This is the first national, standardized, publicly reported survey of patients' perspectives of hospital care. HCAHPS (pronounced “H-caps”), also known as the CAHPS® Hospital Survey, is a survey instrument and data collection methodology for measuring patients’ perceptions of their hospital experience.

Three broad goals have shaped HCAHPS. First, the survey is designed to produce data about patients’ perspectives of care that allow objective and meaningful comparisons of hospitals on topics that are important to consumers. Second, public reporting of the survey results creates new incentives for hospitals to improve quality of care. Third, public reporting serves to enhance accountability in health care by increasing transparency of the quality of hospital care provided in return for the public investment.

Tying this all back to the 1960s is a bit of a challenge, but I did find this great blog post on Nursing in the 1960s so you can see what it was like back in the days of Don Draper. I can say that at least hospitals seem much more interested in the patient experience today, and less focused on the antiquated and elitist antics that were once so prevalent in the physician/nurse relationship (although I’m sure some of that still exists today).

So, what does that have to do with bathrooms and patient experience? Out of 26 questions asked of patients following a hospital stay, 3 are directly related to bathrooms:

Q. During this hospital stay, how often were your room and bathroom kept clean?
A. Never | Sometimes | Usually | Always

Q. During this hospital stay, did you need help from nurses or other hospital staff in getting to the bathroom or in using a bedpan?
A. Yes | No

Q. How often did you get help in getting to the bathroom or in using a bedpan as soon as you wanted?
A. Never | Sometimes | Usually | Always

Interesting that these questions are just as important to the patient experience as whether you were treated with courtesy and respect, if you felt listened to, how well your pain was controlled, whether treatments were explained to you in a way you could understand.

On a scale of 1-10, patients are asked to rate the hospital where 0 is the worst hospital possible and 10 is the best hospital possible – and obviously, bathrooms matter – even in hospitals!

~ Valerie Fritz

PS: The 2010 Bathroom Blogfest Participants include the following bloggers and blogs. You can follow the week’s activities on Facebook and via Twitter if you follow #BathroomEXP:

Blogger	Blog Name	Blog URL
Susan Abbott	Customer Experience Crossroads	http://www.customercrossroads.com/customercrossroads/
Paul Anater	Kitchen and Residential Design	http://www.kitchenandresidentialdesign.com/
Shannon Bilby	Big Bob's Outlet	http://blog.bigbobsoutlet.com/
Shannon Bilby	Carpets N More Blog	http://blog.carpetsnmore.com/
Shannon Bilby	Dolphin Carpet Blog	http://blog.dolphincarpet.com/
Shannon Bilby	From The Floors Up	http://fromthefloorsup.com/
Shannon Bilby	My Big Bob's Blog	http://blog.mybigbobs.com/
Toby Bloomberg	Diva Marketing	http://bloombergmarketing.blogs.com/
Laurence Borel	Blog Till You Drop	http://www.laurenceborel.com/
Bill Buyok	Avente Tile Talk Blog	http://tiletalk.blogspot.com/
Jeanne Byington	The Importance of Earnest Service	http://blog.jmbyington.com/
Becky Carroll	Customers Rock!	http://customersrock.net/
Marianna Chapman	Results Revolution	http://www.resultsrevolution.com/
Katie Clark	Practial Katie	http://practicalkatie.blogspot.com/
Nora DePalma	American Standard's Professor Toilet	http://www.professortoilet.com/
Nora DePalma	O'Reilly DePalma: The Blog	http://www.oreilly-depalma.com/blog/
Leigh Durst	LivePath Experience Architect Weblog	http://livepath.blogspot.com/
Valerie Fritz	The AwarepointBlog	http://www.awarepointblog.com/
Iris Garrott	Checking In and Checking Out	http://circulating.wordpress.com/
Tish Grier	The Constant Observer	http://spap-oop.blogspot.com/
Renee LeCroy	Your Fifth Wall	http://yourfifthwall.com/
Joseph Michelli	Dr. Joseph Michelli's Blog	www.josephmichelli.com/blog
Veronika Miller	Modenus Blog	http://www.modenus.com/blog
Arpi Nalbandian	TILE Magazine Editor Blog	http://www.tilemagonline.com/Articles/Blog_Nalbandian
Maria Palma	People 2 People Service	http://www.people2peopleservice.com/
Reshma Bachwani Paritosh	The Qualitative Research Blog	http://www.onqualitativeresearch.blogspot.com/
David Polinchock	Polinchock's Ponderings	http://blog.polinchock.com/
Victoria Redshaw & Shelley Pond	Scarlet Opus Trends Blog	http://trendsblog.co.uk/
David Reich	My 2 Cents	http://reichcomm.typepad.com/my_weblog/
Sandy Renshaw	Around Des Moines	http://www.arounddesmoines.com/
Sandy Renshaw	Purple Wren	http://www.purplewren.com/
Bethany Richmond	Carpet and Rug Institute Blog	http://www.carpet-and-rug-institute-blog.com/
Bruce Sanders	RIMtailing Blog	http://rimtailing.blogspot.com/
Steve Tokar	Please Be Seated	http://stevetokar.wordpress.com/
Carolyn Townes	Becoming a Woman of Purpose	http://spiritwomen.blogspot.com/
Stephanie Weaver	Experienceology	http://experienceology.blogspot.com/
Christine B. Whittemore	Flooring The Consumer	http://flooringtheconsumer.blogspot.com/
Christine B. Whittemore	Simple Marketing Blog	http://www.simplemarketingblog.com/
Christine & Ted Whittemore	Smoke Rise & Kinnelon Blog	http://smokerise-nj.blogspot.com/
Christine B. Whittemore	The Carpetology Blog	http://carpetology.blogspot.com/
Linda Wright	LindaLoo Build Business With Better Bathrooms	http://lindaloo.com/