To a patient, the closest thing to a hospital is a hotel.

In fact, if you look it up you’ll see the root word of hospitality is hospital. Coincidence?

So why is there such pushback from many in healthcare to spend time and effort making the experience better? Well, we don’t want patients to stay – we want them to go home!

Hospitals might think this way, but good hotels don’t.

Are hotel guests staying overnight? Yes. So are patients.
Do they have a room? Yes. So do patients.
Do we have a housekeeping team to clean their rooms? Yes. So do hospitals.
Do we charge them a daily rate for their room? Yes. So do hospitals.

Hotel guests want to get their money’s worth when they stay at a hotel, so it’s not a huge leap to realize patients want to get their money’s worth, too.

Of course, we know hospitals are not hotels. But to the patient, their expectations are the same. Would a hotel housekeeper barge into a guest room without knocking first? Of course not. Then why do we walk right into patients’ rooms without knocking first? (of course, this does not include medical emergencies). This is just one illustration of how patients don’t really change when they get to a hospital. They still expect privacy and dignity in their room.

Take the concept of “room service on demand.” Several years ago this was uncommon in most hospitals. But now? If you don’t do it, you’re one of the very few that don’t. Patients are Instagramming things like this – why? Because it’s a DIFFERENTIATOR.

To paraphrase George Patton – are you going to lead, follow, or get out of the way? Because this is what’s happening in healthcare right now.

The time has come for us to create something remarkable. But in order to do that, we need to act differently. And to act differently, you have to first be willing to think differently. Are you up to the challenge?