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Tracking your Every Move

The electronic Customer Feedback System (CFS) has enabled Mumbai's Jaslok Hospital to continuously monitor customer feedback. Sonal Shukla explains how CSF has taken customer satisfaction and care to a new level.

In an age where epithets such as 'Customer is king' rules, Mumbai's Jaslok Hospital and Research Centre has chosen to emphasise on it by attempting to enhance patient satisfaction by introducing an electronic patient feedback system, Customer Feedback System (CFS).

An international practice, CFS comes with a unique electronic device that provides real-time feedback collected the moment the customer experiences a service. CFS quantifies customer service, thereby uniformly raising customer service levels to meet the benchmark in the long run.

Is this the Right Thing?

"Collecting and analysing feedback forms, before CFS was installed, was time consuming and tedious" - Col Bhim S Khemani Executive Director Jaslok Hospital

This is a vast change from the days when the hospital would provide a feedback form to the patients at the time of admission and discharge to grade admission procedure, quality of nursing, food and cleanliness, among others. What's more, the increasing strength of patients made it difficult to keep track and analyse the voluminous data generated through the forms. "Collecting, collating and then analysing such documentation was time consuming and tedious," explains Col Bhim S Khemani, Executive Director, Jaslok Hospital. The Hospital has installed CFS in five crucial areas of Admission, Billing, Health check-up, OPD floor and Ward services, and expects to extend it to other departments. Keeping in mind the three main functions, the hospital expects to cover all areas where services are provided to patients.

Selecting a vendor was not tough. Nihilent, an ISO 9001:2000 and Level 5 certified global consulting and solutions firm with a presence in India, the US, the UK and South Africa, was selected to provide the software. "We selected Nihilent based on its experience. The company has executed such implementations for healthcare organisations abroad and in India for the State Bank of India," explains Col Khemani.

When in Doubt, Ask

"The CFS throws up a ready-made reading to help the authorities discern the time when the services were not up to the patients expectations" - Dr Jagdish P Sharma Medical Superintendent Jaslok Hospital

The device, not larger than a telephone and which can either be fixed or portable, is placed at the point of transaction (or service) like admission, billing, health checkups, OPDs, pharmacies and wards. Accommodating about five customised questions, the various options (maximum four) on the device are instrumental in grading the services provided by the hospital. Every department constitutes its own set of questions. The customer can then punch in from the four options provided. Jaslok provides a bilingual questionnaire, in English and Hindi.

The options in each question vary from strongly agree to strongly disagree. The patient's replies which go into the CFS device are sent to the system controller at the end of the day, who then passes on the data to the Nihilent's main server in Malaysia. The data is then processed on a daily basis and feedback is given to the hospital for that particular day, week or month. Accordingly, the hospital decides the course of action to be taken.

The hourly, daily and weekly analysis is sent back to the hospital in the form of graphical representations, which also gives an overview of aspects like the time of the day the customer offered feedback, the quality of the service at that time of the day, et al.

"It throws up a ready-made reading to help the authorities discern the time when the services were not up to the patients expectations," explains Dr Jagdish P Sharma, Medical Superintendent, Jaslok Hospital.

At Jaslok, the analysis received from Nihilent is carefully analysed and discussed by the senior management and trustees. The problem is later discussed with the HoD concerned and appropriate action is taken. Moreover, the hospital has ensured that the staff is aware of the presence of the CFS. "More than making their understanding clear, it was necessary to put them at ease," explains Dr Sharma.

Keeping the Right Scores

So how are the parameters determined and set? The questions framed can help capture feedback on intangible aspects like attitude of the staff, responsiveness, courtesy and ambience, which otherwise are very difficult to measure. Based on the patients' feedback, Nihilent arrives at the right service level at that particular day or month. (The scale is 0 to 100 on the service level which is an aggregate of all the five questions). The average score is generated on a weekly basis. Jaslok has targetted an average score of a little more than 50 per cent. "Once we analyse the representations from Nihilent, we set our own targets. If we have taken an average percentage of the floors (wards) and each floor has some restrictions, limitations and facilities which may not be available to other floors (wards), we then decide our targets on the basis of those wards," says Dr Sharma.

For instance, for a ward with Class A facilities, it would help if the hospital could make arrangements within that single-seater room for the relatives too. On the other hand, it would require the relatives of the patient staying in a ward with economy class facilities to adjust.

Nihilent has global benchmarks on what the score could be. "For Jaslok, we can inform about the service level the healthcare institutions based abroad have achieved," says B Ravi Teja, Associate Vice-President & Head, Enterprise Transformation Group, Nihilent.

What is Customer Feedback System?

CFS is an electronic customer feedback data-gathering system. The system gathers, analyses and reports real time customer feedback. CFS gives an insight in to what customers feel on a daily basis. It measures the performance and the extent to which relevant standards are being met.

The scores enable both internal as well as external comparisons of wards. Moreover, the hospital can set a target to the score. For instance, the set target for 'Courtesy' in every ward could be 95 per cent. If the scoring is 75 per cent, then the gap of 20 per cent can be identified and rectified.

Although the system was installed in Jaslok only in January this year, the benefits are there for all to see. Installation of CFS has made it easier for patients to give feedback. CFS, being detachable, can also be used as per patient's convenience. The customer does not give the feedback on what they experienced previously, but their current experience. Patients can also offer feedback as many times as they desire. Moreover, there is no scope for bias to creep in the entire process or no filtering out the negative feedback.

"The patient can give their feedback, indicating a problem. We facilitate the hospital to analyse, chalk an action plan on a weekly basis, so that the score can move up the next week or month," Teja adds.

Jaslok Hospital is planning to bring the facility of medical record number in the CFS device, which will help identify the patient. "A medical record number is an unique identity of every patient in our hospital. The device can be customised to capture the identity of the patient," states Col Khemani. "Like a weekly analysis, we have plans to hold meetings every month," concludes Dr Sharma.

sonal.shukla@expressindia.com