Here are five team exercises to help your hospital improve customer service, employee satisfaction, and efficiency!
We all love to hold onto familiar things, but we’ve been entrenched in the same way of seeing clients and patients for decades. Yet so much has changed! Technology, client’s expectations, the number of tasks our staff members have to do, time and, of course, money. The time is ripe for change, but first, we have to get our employees bought into the need. Here are four exercises that will stimulate thought.
A Trip To Your Doctor’s Office
Assemble your team in a room. Tell them that they are about to take an imaginary trip to their doctor’s office. Ask them the following questions and encourage them to shout out their answers.
- Today is the day you are going to the human doctor. How do you know today is the day of your doctor visit?
- Do you have to fill anything out or do anything prior to going? Do you feel that these tasks are worthwhile?
- Now you are driving to your doctor’s office. What are you feeling and thinking?
- And now you arrive. You walk in and what happens?
- What is the check-in process like. How does the nurse behave?
- Now you sit down and wait. You are feeling and thinking…? Do you watch TV? Talk to others that are waiting?
- Now it is time to go into the exam room. How do you know this? Explain what happens.,
- Now that you are with the nurse, do you feel liked and safe? Does he or she appear to be paying attention? Where is his or her focus?
- The nurse completes his or her work and you are left waiting. What do you do in the exam room? Look in drawers? Sit on the butcher-block-paper covered chair? What do you hear? What are you thinking?
- The doctor walks into the room. Does he or she greet you? Touch you? Where does he or she sit and where is the focus?
- Do you feel as though you are in the hands of someone that likes you?
- Does the doctor do an examination?
- How does he or she wrap things up with you?
- Does this whole experience leave you more open or guarded?
- Are you more or less likely to be honest about your health based on the setting and how you were treated?
- Does the experience leave you trusting that the medical team has taken careful consideration of your needs or does it feel like they are catching up on your medical history once you are in front of them?
- How do the doctors and nursing staff feel about their work?
At the end of the exercise, remind the staff that the steps of the human doctor’s office are nearly identical to those that occur at a veterinary hospital. Do they believe that the veterinary experience is more qualitative? Why? Press hard for realistic answers and ask the team to come up with a list of ‘musts’ that need to happen during every client interaction to prevent a repeat of what happens in human healthcare. Lastly, are all the steps needed? Based on their potential negative impact on clients, which ones might be changed or eliminated?
A Trip to the Veterinary Office
This is an exercise similar to the one above, but invites team members to write out their answers. You can find the worksheets for this exercise here.
30 Minutes, One Exam
Break your team into groups of 3-5 team members. Ask each group to walk through the steps of the service experience starting at the front desk, waiting in the lobby, having a history taken with a tech, the examination with the doctor, the patient ‘going to the back’, and then checking out at the desk. Using a worksheet similar to the one shown below, have the team members write down how long each step takes, why it is important for the hospital, and what the client gets out of it. When they are finished, remind them that every minute at a veterinary hospital typically costs 10-12 dollars in fixed expenses. Have them multiply the minutes it takes for each step by 12 dollars and ask them if they believe the step is ‘worth’ it. Invite ideas on how things might be economized.
| Milepost | Process: What you are trying to do for the hospital. | Purpose: How does the step support the client and patient experience? Your Mission? | Time |
| Check in and waiting in the lobby and weighing pet. | |||
| History with tech. | |||
| Waiting for the doctor | |||
| Exam. | |||
| Taking the patient to treatment. | |||
| Meds and discharge instructions. | |||
| Check out. |
The Value of Trust
Break your team into groups of 4-8 individuals. Give each group a lifelike doll and one syringe that contains ‘comprehensive annual care’. Tell the group that in order to be effective, the dose must be given orally, as a sub-q injection, and then a blood sample has to be drawn. Have each team member take turns holding the syringe, presenting it to the team member that holds the baby, and convincing the ‘parent’ to buy the injection. Circulate and listen to how team members work to make a case that the innocent baby should be ‘jabbed’ and fed the medicine. Watch the behavior of the ‘mother’. Afterwards, invite the group to discuss what they enjoyed most in the exchange with the parent. Ask the parents what worked to make them feel most at ease.
The Impact of First Impressions
Break the hospital team into groups of 4. Invite each group to do research on their phones, ‘How valuable are first impressions to consumers?’ After 10 minutes, invite the groups to shout out what they have learned. Now ask them to talk about first impressions at the hospital and what each does to make the most favorable impact on clients when they see them for the first time.
- On the phone
- When the client walks in the door.
- At check in.
- While they wait
- When they are greeted by the veterinary nurse for a history
- When the doctor enters the exam room
- While the doctor is doing the examination