Beyond Disney And Tinkerbell: Moving The Needle On Stuck Patient Satisfaction Scores

I've heard countless hospital executives say it: They worked their butts off to improve patient satisfaction scores at their organization and those efforts paid off. They moved the needle … until the needle got stuck. If you want to go (if you'll pardon the business cliché), from good to great, the key is not to focus primarily on patient satisfaction or service excellence, argues Fred Lee, a patient relations and service consultant and author of "If Disney Ran Your Hospital."

You read that right: The author of one of the best-known books on service excellence in the healthcare industry says you should not focus solely on service excellence in your quest to improve patient satisfaction scores.

Lee, who spoke at the College of Healthcare Information Management Executives at its CIO forum in New Orleans earlier this week, said hospitals that "hardwire" patient satisfaction and service excellence and concepts such as courtesy have maxed out the potential of these efforts. "A service of courtesy is not enough in our business if we are not also meeting people's emotional needs," Lee said...