Health Care Service Excellence loong way to go.

I went to leading Manipal  hospital yesterday with backache complaint for my loved one, when I entered the hospital the receptionist directed me to some ward and see the doctor, I went there with an expectation, some doctor will be there to listen to my problem, but I only could see a man standing with a stethoscope not even bother to ask me to sit (but no way by his look or conduct we can assume he is a doctor) still I went ahead and explained symptoms of the problem. He didn’t even bother to listen to me completely, he just heard some words and directed me to  ortho, I was not convinced to meet  ortho because the problem was more related to urinary,  again I asked him are you sure you want me to meet orthopedic as my complaint is more related to urinary (as I had told him earlier as well). Then he says go and meet someone else. Finally we met the doctor after waiting for an hour or so. I would have walked at least a kilometer and half back and forth within the hospital during my stay of 2 hours. By the time I came out of the hospital I was sure I don’t want to visit again.

This is the classic example of how business loses its customer. The point here is the level of service Quality in healthcare is very low in India for whatever the reason, but things are changing and it’s high time healthcare people adopt some good practice such as Lean Six Sigma. Lean principle can really help a lot to control such nuances in the system and make a difference to customer experience.

Funniest part of the episode was…. I could see that below the drinking water tap it was written “USE LIMITED WATER”. This is a classic example of right information on wrong place,(doctors are suppose to encourage more water intake)  intention and the purpose is lost when any process is done just for the sake of doing,  It has to be done in right spirit and understanding.