If you’re working in the medical field in any position, this is a great article from the patient’s point of view. Enjoy…
I suddenly ended up in the hospital a few weeks ago, dealing with a severe bout of pneumonia.
I’ll spare you most of the details, but it basically all started with the trip to the Howard County General Hospital ER in Columbia, MD on a Saturday night after having a severe reaction to something I ate. In the process, gastric fluids got into the lungs. Ugh!
The digestive distress passed rather quickly, but an alert doctor observed that my vital signs were going downhill fast and determined that pneumonia was setting in quickly. He reversed my heading for discharge, and to my surprise, steered me toward the ICU unit.
Now we all are aware of the current national debate on health care reform. And I will not tread into that explosive political arena in this blog.
But as I was in the ER, the ICU and then the regular ward (total stay was 7 days), I did make a number of marketing observations — both positive and negative, from the perspective of “the client.”
Let me start by saying that I smile when people say to me, “Oh, I wouldn’t be good in sales.” In my mind, every employee is a salesperson, and we all should realize the importance of that role.
That’s why I’m fond of saying that a receptionist should treat his or her job as “Vice President of First Impressions.” (I didn’t come up with that – I got that from a seminar I attended 10 years ago with marketer Keith Hatschek, who has since concentrated his work in the music field)
And the concept of “everyone is a salesperson” was so obvious to me during my hospital stay at Howard County General.
Think about it. How do we draw our general opinions about whether a hospital is a “good” patient-oriented hospital or “bad” one. Isn’t it really based on Read the rest of this entry
