Saturday, May 10, 2014

A complaint is a gift - handling patient complaints at Malpani Infertility Clinic

Complaint Department Grenade

Like all doctors, I love hearing compliments and getting chocolates when patients get pregnant after IVF.   IVF can be a happy specialty, as we help to change people's lifes for the better by giving them a deeply loved child.

Like all doctors, I don't like having to listen to complaints . However, after many years of experience, I have learned to treasure the complaints as well, because they help me to improve the services we provide to our patients !

Complaints are a great opportunity for doctor to understand the patient’s experience and hear in their own words what went wrong for them. By listening , I can often help to fix the problem , and prevent it from recurring again.

Even if the reason for the dissatisfaction is a result of something which is not on my direct control, being aware of what makes my patients unhappy helps to me plan for the future, so we can reduce our patient's pain points over time.

Also, when my staff sees how seriously we handle all complaints, they learn to be respectful towards all our patients. This helps to improve patients satisfaction in our clinic.

We try to encourage our patients to be honest and open. I know it takes a lot of courage for a patient to complain. No one wants to antagonise their doctor by complaining, because they are worried that  an upset staff will retaliate by providing them with poor quality care. However, I always tell my patients that if they do not provide frank feedback, we will never be able to improve !



No comments:

Post a Comment