You choose a restaurant for lunch. THIS is what their bathroom looks like. Now …

The question is – even if you’ve never eaten here before, can you guess how the food tastes?

Would you still eat here? 

If this is how much (or how little) care they show to their restroom, how much care are they putting into the food they serve?

Everything speaks. 

In healthcare, everything matters in the eyes and ears of the patient.

Anything that distracts or detracts from the ideal patient experience is what we call “graffiti.”

There are two kinds of graffiti: verbal and physical.

Verbal Graffiti comes in the form of the words we choose:

That’s not my job

Sorry, I’m off the clock

I’m not allowed to do that

I don’t know

Think about each of these phrases. Do they make your patients and visitors feel valued and cared for? Or unimportant and dismissed?

Physical Graffiti is found in your physical environment (of course!) and it includes things like chipped paint, poor directional signs, dead plants in the waiting area and yes, even dirty restrooms.

What kind of graffiti is in your hospital or care facility right now? And how will you change it?