Achieving Service Excellence: Strategies for Healthcare, Second Edition

Achieving Service Excellence: Strategies for Healthcare, Second Edition

Myron D. Fottler, PhD Robert C. Ford, PhD Cherrill P. Heaton, PhD

Softbound, 456pp, 2009

Print: $96.00

By Topic:

Book Description

Instructor Resources: Discussion questions and case studies with talking points.

Information about customer service hits and misses is now more accessible to healthcare consumers. Outstanding healthcare organizations set the bar at a high level for both clinical and service excellence. Customers who are armed with information and aware of their options are choosing providers they believe are ready, willing, and able to provide the superior experience they expect.

This book offers a blueprint for successfully competing in today’s competitive healthcare marketplace. It presents the theories, methods, and techniques behind delivering an excellent healthcare experience through strategy, staffing, and systems.

Each chapter explores a service principle and provides numerous real-world examples and current research findings. Among the many topics discussed are creating a patient-centered environment; building a culture in which customers are treated like guests; training, motivating, and empowering staff; measuring service quality; managing service waits; and recovering from a service failure.

This second edition has been completely updated. Concepts have been expanded to include information on:

Significance of aligning strategy, staffing, and systems

Evidence-based service management and design principles

Customer relationship management

Internet-based opportunities for various purposes, including communication, information, marketing, recruitment, feedback, and training

Retail clinics, concierge medicine, telemedicine, and other new customer-driven innovations