I was driving to the airport recently and saw a billboard that caught my eye in a big way – a local hospital is advertising, in real time, a terrific piece of performance information: the average wait in their emergency room to receive medical attention.
This is a powerful piece of performance data, and it shows:
- the hospital is paying attention to the wait time,
- is willing to be transparent about it in a very public way, and
- is confident enough to use it as a competitive advantage.
(You can also get ER wait times via text and, as you might have guessed, there’s an app for that too.)
It’s a smart move. Turns out this group of hospitals has intentionally reworked their processes in the past couple of years and cut the average ER wait time by more than 40%. They’ve focused on their customers and on a result that matters a great deal to their customers – and by using it in their advertising, they’re seeing increased business.
These hospitals are not the only ones advertising ER wait times. Others around the country have done so, some for many months, and report it has increased their business.
To us as patients (and customers), delivering a shorter wait is welcome and makes sense. Health care hasn’t always thought so, though – the old saying about “being a patient means being patient” had a lot of truth to it (and still does in too many healthcare operations). But the idea that improving the customer experience as an essential part of the delivery of healthcare is increasingly common and a welcome change.
So if large, complex organizations like hospitals can get so focused on results for customers that they proudly use them for advertising …. what’s stopping government?
What result is important to your customers that you’re not paying (enough) attention to?
What result would you put on a billboard? Or an iPhone app?
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