What Does Quality Mean To Me?

Imagine walking into a health care facility and being instantly greeted with a pleasant yet subtle, vanilla aroma.  The office is immaculate.  The front desks and patient chairs in the waiting area are regularly wiped down with disinfectant cloths, and even the trashcans are kept tidy and out of plain sight.  The office staff is friendly, available for assistance with paperwork, and makes an effort to ensure comfort to each patient in the waiting room.  The clinical staff is as equally effervescent.  The physicians actually listen to inquiries from patients and make an effort to communicate with each individual and their families.  Unfortunately, many Americans would find this description of a quality ridden health clinic polar opposite from their own personal, less than perfect experiences.

Providing high quality care and service should never be an option, especially for a health care facility.  As a former Marketing Director for an urgent care, I have seen how quality and the lack thereof can make a substantial difference in the number of recurring patients to any given facility.  In my own personal experience, I have found that patients need to feel secure.  Cleanliness, a friendly staff, and a substantial amount of time spent with the physician, provide patients with that necessary security. 

As a preventative health enthusiast, I am always trying to remain my healthiest to avoid visiting the doctor for anything other than a regular check-up.  Visiting my primary care physician is a necessary action to ensure healthiness, but my number one concern is becoming contaminated with someone else’s germs while I’m in the waiting area with other patients, or through shared medical equipment.  Everyone gets sick, but we all go to the doctor for different reasons at different times. This is why it is vital for health clinics to have an organized and deliberate office layout to ensure efficient wait times and to prevent cross-contamination.  Cross-contamination happens recurrently.  Last year, the New York Times reported that nine patients in Alabama lost their lives because of an intravenous supplement that had been infected with deadly bacterium.  My own desire for sterile conditions significantly helps me target these problems to ensure success in avoiding them in the future.   Many of the aforementioned steps to quality were required at my former jobs, and will most certainly be performed at my facility when my dreams come into fruition and I become the owner of my own wellness center.  

   

Obtaining high quality in any business operation requires diligence, especially in medical facilities.  However, with dedication and teamwork, it is very possible to achieve.  Patients want complete peace of mind that they are in capable hands.  They require a certain standard of quality.   If a health clinic is willing to provide that standard, then they will begin to see the fruits of their labor when more patients increasingly return with their family and friends.  

Sack, K., & Williams, T. Deaths of 9 alabama patients tied to intravenous supplement. New York 
         
         Times.Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/31/us/31intravenous.html