Committed to
customer service
Children's
Department of Orthopaedic Surgery
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Among many improvements
recently made by the department of Orthopaedics was the purchase
of a new fluoroscope, which allows staff to perform basic
extremity x-rays during office visits. Above, Peter Waters,
MD eliminates the need for a patient to make separate trip
to Radiology.
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The Department of Orthopaedic
Surgery at Children’s Hospital Boston is working hard to improve
access and customer service issues. Most recently, the department
created a new Customer Service Team that uses feedback from patients,
parents and referring physicians to tackle customer service issues.
The feedback they received confirmed that the department’s success
also presents it’s greatest challenge: over the past few years,
patient volume in the department has grown by over 20 percent
to 160 patients per day, and the department fields over 1,300
calls every week. To deal with this unparalleled growth the department
has added staff and increased training. It recently added three
new physicians, two orthopaedic technicians, a nurse practitioner
and a registered nurse to ease patient congestion. In addition,
administrative staff now attend customer service training classes,
and receive cross training so that employees can better support
each other during busy times. Today, eight staff members are trained
to take on both the practice assistant and the ambulatory service
representative roles.
The Customer Service Team has also worked hard to streamline
office visits and decrease patient wait time. They found that
helping families prepare for their visit before ever coming to
the hospital is one way to make things go more smoothly. Once
families do arrive, they receive vibrating pagers so that they
may leave the waiting room without losing their appointment slot.
In addition, the department purchased a new fluoroscope to perform
basic extremity x-rays during office visits, eliminating many
patients’ separate trips to Radiology that can make a long visit
even longer.
The Orthopaedic Customer Service Team plans to continue using
patient, family and physician feedback to improve the level of
service in the department.
