A negative perception turned to a raving review

A few years ago, a family member of one of our inpatients published a blog about their experience at one of our locations and their negative perceptions of Children’s Specialized Hospital.

People who had come across the post via social media were commenting on the post and sharing it; some were responding sympathetically while others were making assumptions about our hospital and the services we provide.

After discussing a plan of action with a team of folks, I posted a comment on their blog post apologizing for their negative experience and offering to make myself immediately available to resolve any of their concerns.

In a conversation with the family, they provided us with some suggestions on what we could improve upon to avoid this situation in the future, one of which was more training around communication.

When I went to find the blog post it had been deleted, but you can imagine the impact it had on those who provided care to this child and their family. We continued to provide amazing care to the child and worked diligently to ensure our hurt was not placed on the child in any way. We had an obligation to the child to do our best, as we always do.

Fast forward 7 years, I receive an e-mail from Pat O’Hanlon, of our Family Faculty, to share that she saw the family in New Brunswick for an outpatient session. While the child was being seen, Mom was raving about how wonderful the care is that she is receiving. You can imagine the excitement in Pat’s e-mail when she told me this. It was such a positive conversation coming from a family that had previously had such a negative experience.

We listened to the suggestions for improvement that all our families shared with us and incorporated them into our Service Excellence Training, a philosophy to engage and empower every staff member to consistently deliver an exceptional experience with every interaction.

Two of our Service Excellence Standards are, “I will follow through to make sure that questions and concerns are addressed and results are communicated” and “I resolve concerns respectfully and directly with the person involved.”

By listening to the concerns from this family and addressing them we were able to provide continued care for the child, build a relationship with the patient and the family, and change their perception of Children’s Specialized.

This example is just one of the many that make us different. Great work to all who was involved.

Do you have any examples of how you practiced service recovery and changed a parent’s experience and perception of Children’s Specialized?