QUALITY HEALTHCARE SERVICE with Kola Owolabi
Putting good quality service in place costs money, particularly in the healthcare setting. Money to buy genuine and top-quality equipment. Money to keep on maintaining the equipment so that they will be in top-notch condition at all times. Money to hire knowledgeable professionals who will operate the equipment professionally. Money to put the environment of operations in good shape, clean and tidy and spotless.
Money, I mean good money is needed to put all the good things and good environment in place in the healthcare setting. However, I learnt a big lesson when I had the privilege to visit John Hopkins University Teaching Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland USA a few years back. The hospital, which belongs to John Hopkins University, is one of the medical institutions that enjoy the highest level of endowment in the world. I went there because my sister-in law was going to have her baby there. There was nothing special about the hospital in terms of physical appearance. The inside of the hospital was not extraordinary either. The layout of the wards is ordinary, just like any good Nigerian hospital.
However, the reputation of the hospital as one of the most respected medical institutions in the world, came from not one can see outside. One will recollect that it was the hospital that hosted the famed operation done by Ben Carson, arguably one of the world’s leading neuro-surgeons, where he led a team of doctors to separate twins co-joined at the brain. The operation was performed successfully not only because of the expertise of Ben Carson and his team. It was the spirit of excellence in them, which is reflected in how devoted is one to acting with extreme care and putting in one’s best in order to have the best outcome.
That is what quality service is all about. Giving every activity in one’s course of providing attention with extreme care. Even if one is using the most basic equipment and operating in ordinary environment, having a spirit of excellence in one’s approach to giving attention will sway the odds in one’s favour. Spirit of excellence in healthcare service in the game changer and that is the lesson I learnt when I visited John Hopkins University Teaching Hospital.
The environment was ordinary, but everyone was behaving as if they knew what they were doing. An aura of competence filled the air. Although I was not there to judge anything, I was just amazed at the heavy contrast between the reputation of the hospital that I have heard about and what I saw in the physical environment. Quality is not in the razzmatazz, we like to put up here back home in Nigeria. It is in the heart of the people and which is translated into their ‘act’ and it has become an ‘art’.
That is why Nigerians are flocking abroad for medical attention. You can easily feel the heart of the person giving you attention in an healthcare environment. You can easily discern between somebody who is doing it for the money he will collect from you and the other person whose whole intention is on how you are going to get well fast and never come back. It is a matter of the heart.
Kola Owolabi:- (FIMC) Fellow of the Institute of Management Consultants (with certifications in Healthcare Organizations Operations and Quality Improvement in Healthcare Organizations), 08023203198 is the Principal Consultant of Healing Balm Consult, a Healthcare Consultancy services organization involved in the training of healthcare practitioners, particularly on issues concerning putting in place quality improvement culture
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