Monday, September 21, 2015

INTRODUCTION TO QUALITY MANAGEMENT SYSTEM IN HISTOPATHOLOGY LABORATORY-7

CUSTOMER SERVICE: MAKING YOUR CUSTOMERS HAPPY!
Histopathology laboratory services are centered on the patient.  Therefore, the satisfaction of the patient should be of paramount importance to the Medical Laboratory Scientist and other members of staff.
Quality Control and Quality Management System will fail if it excludes customer’s satisfaction.  In public medical laboratories, the Servicom unit should be established and  saddled with the responsibility of ensuring customer’s satisfaction on histopathology laboratory services. 
Private medical laboratories should have a customer care desk to ensure that customers are well satisfied at all times.
All members of staff must be committed to this objective.  Adequate planning is also important to gather necessary information from customers who benefit from services so rendered.  Knowledgeable members of the laboratory or those specifically trained to meet this objective should be assigned with the responsibility of monitoring customer’s satisfaction.
Calculators, computers and Internet are requisite tools for the manpower saddled with this responsibility.
Patient’s Requirements
Clients should be provided with:
·         Right and timely information
·         Good collection facilities
·         Trained and available personnel
·         Good maintenance of laboratory records
How To Monitor Customer’s Satisfaction
This could be achieved using:
·         Complaint monitoring
·         Quality indicators
·         Internal audit
·         Management review
·         Satisfaction survey
·         Interviews and focus groups.
A patient’s complain register should be made available to properly monitor issues that may arise from this end.  The register should capture:
·         Nature of complaints
·         Time
·         Patient refusal
·         Lost or delayed results

These will serve as indicators for determining customer’s needs and gathering information on level of customer’s satisfaction.

NEXT: FACILITIES AND SAFETY

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