TY - JOUR
T1 - What do hotels and hospitals have in common? How we can learn from the hotel industry to take better care of patients
AU - Zygourakis, Corinna
AU - Rolston, John
AU - Treadway, James
AU - Chang, Susan
AU - Kliot, Michel
PY - 2014
Y1 - 2014
N2 - Despite widely divergent public perceptions and goals, hotels and hospitals share many core characteristics. Both serve demanding and increasingly well-informed clienteles, both employ a large hierarchy of workers with varying levels of responsibility, and both have payments that are increasingly tied to customer/patient evaluations. In the hotel industry, decades of management experience and market research have led to widespread improvements and innovations that improve customer satisfaction. But there has been incredibly little cross-fertilization between the hotel and hospital industries. In this paper, we first consider the changes in the healthcare system that are forcing hospitals to become more concerned with patient satisfaction. We discuss the similarities and differences between the hotel and hospital industries, and then outline several of the unique challenges that neurosurgeons face in taking care of patients and increasing their comfort. We cite specific lessons from the hotel industry that can be applied to patients′ preadmission, check-in, hospital stay, discharge planning, and poststay experiences. We believe that hospitals can and should leverage the successful advances within the hotel industry to improve patient satisfaction, without having to repeat identical research or market experimentation. We hope this will lead to rapid improvements in patient experiences and overall wellbeing.
AB - Despite widely divergent public perceptions and goals, hotels and hospitals share many core characteristics. Both serve demanding and increasingly well-informed clienteles, both employ a large hierarchy of workers with varying levels of responsibility, and both have payments that are increasingly tied to customer/patient evaluations. In the hotel industry, decades of management experience and market research have led to widespread improvements and innovations that improve customer satisfaction. But there has been incredibly little cross-fertilization between the hotel and hospital industries. In this paper, we first consider the changes in the healthcare system that are forcing hospitals to become more concerned with patient satisfaction. We discuss the similarities and differences between the hotel and hospital industries, and then outline several of the unique challenges that neurosurgeons face in taking care of patients and increasing their comfort. We cite specific lessons from the hotel industry that can be applied to patients′ preadmission, check-in, hospital stay, discharge planning, and poststay experiences. We believe that hospitals can and should leverage the successful advances within the hotel industry to improve patient satisfaction, without having to repeat identical research or market experimentation. We hope this will lead to rapid improvements in patient experiences and overall wellbeing.
KW - Hospital
KW - hotel
KW - patient satisfaction
KW - quality improvement
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84906805658&partnerID=8YFLogxK
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U2 - 10.4103/2152-7806.128913
DO - 10.4103/2152-7806.128913
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84906805658
SN - 2152-7806
VL - 5
SP - S49-S53
JO - Surgical Neurology International
JF - Surgical Neurology International
IS - SUPPL. 2
ER -