Last week I visited a hospital for routine medical checkup. I entered the hospital at 10 a.m. and stepped out of the premises at around 12 noon i.e. two hours. I spent 120 minutes of my life in the hospital.
The funny part is that I spend exactly five minutes with my doctor. The rest of the time I had to run from pillar to post within the hospital for clearance of one document or the other, approval from the insurance, waiting for my turn at the hospital’s pharmacy and laboratory etc.
Given the endless bureaucratic procedures, you must be thinking that I had been to a government hospital. For your information, I am writing about one of the most prestigious private hospitals in the city.
It seems that there is something wrong in our health care system, and maybe it is the time we start thinking about addressing this issue.
Let’s start with the insurance system. It is not that bad but at the heart of its design, the benefits of both the insurance companies and hospitals come way before the insured individual. In other words, it is a modern example of bureaucracy at its best; loads of papers to be signed, stamped, and moved from an office to another as if we are still living in the 1950s, the only difference is that we are using modern computers and printers to print the papers instead of having them written by hand.
I can understand that both parties engaged in the insurance system — the companies and hospitals —both work for profit that want to make sure every last riyal is counted for. The only thing I am unable to understand is why this system is not upgraded fast enough using the networking technologies available these days.
Now let’s move to the health care institutions. It seems to me that they need to be reminded that they are service providers. Therefore, designing every aspect of the experience of those receiving that service falls within their core business. Being in a hospital is a daunting experience in itself; it is stressful and unpleasant, people going there because they feel that they need some kind of help, hospitals should not make those feelings any worse by their bureaucratic chaos and rude staff and medical teams.
For a long time, medical institutions have been built around their doctors.
We have good doctors, you are here to receive their help, that is it! This model is outdated. Different studies have found that patients’ chances to return to the same hospital, recommending it to others, or even improving the health outcome of their visit is not only dependable on the know-how of the medical staff, but on the whole experience the patient had in the hospital. Jordan Dolin, founder of Emmi Solution, a company that produces interactive patient educations materials with the goal of improving patient experience says that “a hospital promoting excellent outcomes is like a restaurant saying we serve food; a lot of research that has been done suggest patient loyalty is based on other factors.”
The Beryl Institute, which works with health care professionals to develop patient experience, defines patients experience as “the sum of all interactions, shaped by an organization’s culture, that influence patient perceptions across the continuum of care.”
Interestingly though, in one of the surveys conducted by this institution they found that 73 percent of hospital executives do not know much about patient experience. I can confidently claim that this high percentage would go even higher in the case of Saudi Arabia.
The funny part is that I spend exactly five minutes with my doctor. The rest of the time I had to run from pillar to post within the hospital for clearance of one document or the other, approval from the insurance, waiting for my turn at the hospital’s pharmacy and laboratory etc.
Given the endless bureaucratic procedures, you must be thinking that I had been to a government hospital. For your information, I am writing about one of the most prestigious private hospitals in the city.
It seems that there is something wrong in our health care system, and maybe it is the time we start thinking about addressing this issue.
Let’s start with the insurance system. It is not that bad but at the heart of its design, the benefits of both the insurance companies and hospitals come way before the insured individual. In other words, it is a modern example of bureaucracy at its best; loads of papers to be signed, stamped, and moved from an office to another as if we are still living in the 1950s, the only difference is that we are using modern computers and printers to print the papers instead of having them written by hand.
I can understand that both parties engaged in the insurance system — the companies and hospitals —both work for profit that want to make sure every last riyal is counted for. The only thing I am unable to understand is why this system is not upgraded fast enough using the networking technologies available these days.
Now let’s move to the health care institutions. It seems to me that they need to be reminded that they are service providers. Therefore, designing every aspect of the experience of those receiving that service falls within their core business. Being in a hospital is a daunting experience in itself; it is stressful and unpleasant, people going there because they feel that they need some kind of help, hospitals should not make those feelings any worse by their bureaucratic chaos and rude staff and medical teams.
For a long time, medical institutions have been built around their doctors.
We have good doctors, you are here to receive their help, that is it! This model is outdated. Different studies have found that patients’ chances to return to the same hospital, recommending it to others, or even improving the health outcome of their visit is not only dependable on the know-how of the medical staff, but on the whole experience the patient had in the hospital. Jordan Dolin, founder of Emmi Solution, a company that produces interactive patient educations materials with the goal of improving patient experience says that “a hospital promoting excellent outcomes is like a restaurant saying we serve food; a lot of research that has been done suggest patient loyalty is based on other factors.”
The Beryl Institute, which works with health care professionals to develop patient experience, defines patients experience as “the sum of all interactions, shaped by an organization’s culture, that influence patient perceptions across the continuum of care.”
Interestingly though, in one of the surveys conducted by this institution they found that 73 percent of hospital executives do not know much about patient experience. I can confidently claim that this high percentage would go even higher in the case of Saudi Arabia.
