What steps is TouchPoint taking to enhance both patient and caregiver experiences within the hospital environment?
You have various stakeholders, of course you’ve got the patient at the center, but we’re also servicing our patient care technicians, we’re servicing our doctors, we’re servicing our nurses, we’re servicing hospital administration. Every single point person, every person that walks into that hospital, every person that tastes our food, that’s our end customer. And whenever we think about introducing any technology, any programatics, any LTO, if we’re talking retail, it’s about how do we spark a moment of joy for any one of those areas? How do we remove a pain point to make their day-to-day easier, because you got enough challenges? EVS, food service, it should be easy. And our job is to make that easy, to make that fluid. Because when you walk into a hospital, you should expect the hospital to be clean, you should expect to have great surface, you should expect the food to taste great, and you should expect to have food almost as a form of medicine.
And when we look at our programatics, we look at our technology and we look at actually the data that comes out of all of those different technologies, all of those different programatics, how do we ensure that that’s happening every day, every time, consistently and effectively at scale?
What are some of the little things you believe truly move the needle in the patient experience?
I think small moments matter when you’re thinking about that patient experience of laying in a hospital bed or having that one moment that kind of takes you away from the environment you’re in. And we do a lot of scripting, we do a lot of training, a lot of programatics on how to make that more effective. But ultimately, it comes from an engaged workforce where someone’s happy to be at work, where someone understands the value and the why of what they’re doing. So whenever we’re launching a technology initiative, whenever we’re launching a new program, whenever we’re introducing anything new to the operation, we explain the why to our team members so they understand the thought process that went into it.
I’ve met with hundreds, I’ve met with thousands of our housekeepers and had these conversations with them before we’ve launched new technologies like a TaskUp, which is our workforce management system, new iPad system. I’ve talked to them about it when they’ve had feedback. We’ve made those changes in some cases, same day. I was actually at one of our children’s hospitals about six months ago, and as I first walked into the door, one of our housekeepers came up and gave me a hug, and she said, “So Max, this is the first job that I’ve ever had where I’ve been able to use technology and it be in my own language. I’ve never had a job before where I can look at it and it’s in my language on my terms.” And now I’m paraphrasing a bit, as you might imagine. But her iPad was entirely in Arabic, but she was two weeks into her job at that point, actively out on the floors. It sped up our onboarding process and we’re able to meet that associate on her terms. That’s a small moment that mattered. In our technology systems for that technology particular, we have it in 53 different languages today. And as you’re watching this, it’s probably more than 53 now. But that’s how we’re meeting our team members where they are and solving small pain points, small initiatives, small technology gains, small ideas that scale well.
What is one big thing that moves the needle for patient experience?
The whole experience is the outcome. So when you think about a patient and you think about what we refer to as the halo effect of their overall experience, it’s how each of those initiatives, each those interactions you have with the hospital, you have with the experience, you have with cleanliness, facilities, food service, any category you think of, it’s that owning that whole experience is the outcome. Because one moment, one issue, that can be painful and it’s reducing and eliminating any of those issues. One thing we talk a lot about is consistency. Consistency and standardization at scale. That’s the power of standardization, is the consistent experience that a patient, that a clinician, that any client, and anyone that walks in the threshold of that hospital is a client, experiences.
In terms of back-end complexity of jobs for frontline staff, is technology replacing human care?
Technology doesn’t replace, it augments the human experience. Within TouchPoint, we talk about compassion in every point of human contact. It’s about creating meaningful moments and letting technology make those meaningful moments easier to produce, easier to augment, easier to maintain at scale. It’s taking some of those lower value tasks out of it so that we can then pour into and reinvest into the experiences and outcome. We look at robotics, but robotics over the years has changed to cobotics, and I still think there’s a lot of value here, but it’s something that we’re looking at. It’s something that we’re constantly testing, constantly entering, constantly trying to figure out a better way to do it. But ultimately, when you’re there and you’re in a care situation, there’s a human component that can’t be replaced of someone that cares and having someone there that cares for you.