SO YOU WANT TO COMMAND A HOSPITAL

After 24 years of an almost selfless service to the nation, i have this

opportunity to command a hospital and every moment since the day

i took on that role has been amazingly beautiful , almost the stuff

dreams are made off. Challenging an understatement, but then i

wouldn't do anything without seeing challenges and then putting

everything i had in overcoming them. the lessons i have learnt in

the very minuscule but full of learning time are penned down:-

Doctors and the Nursing staff are your biggest assets as well

as your greatest challenges:- There is no doubting this at all, if

you want to lead an hospital these two are your greatest friends if

treated with respect admiration and support and your worst

nightmares if treated otherwise. you would be much wiser and

successful if your doctors and nurses found you to be approachable,

humble,, truthful ,transparent and equanimous. They would come to

you if you were to keep your doors open and listen to them. LISTEN

TO THEM , nothing would be more important and more relevant

when you dealt with this Human asset

Making attendants your fans:- We all talk about patients as your

greatest customers, but i for one would digress a little and say that,

good patient care is GIVEN but what we tend to ignore at our own

peril is how we treat the attendants of these patients. and mark my

words as the patients are being treated its the attendants who are

running around your hospital for everything starting from the

admission to the pharmacy to the laboratories until the discharge.

Be wonderfully kind and good to them and you will see more and

more people visiting your hospital for treatment

Keeping your vendors/suppliers on your side:- Often taken for

granted and left to the supply chain managers to deal with, this

group of stakeholders are your all time support group when the

chips are down both financially and otherwise. if you have them on

your right hand side they would open their wares at midnight and

supply you or make it possible for you to access important implants,

laboratory supplies, medicines day and night even when all other

hospitals around you would be denied . Engaging your vendors at all

levels and making them feel that you are fair transparent and along

with of course clearing their payments in a good time, would help

the hospital in more ways than you would think off. just a tip many

patients attendants and doctors take advice from many of the

renowned vendors before choosing the hospital of choice.

Keeping the MOJO alive:- Its no doubt true that an hospital is a

place where serious business happens but that in no way means

that the entire hospital an the staff should have a serious

appearance . a gloomy hospital would certainly not be attractive to

patients, whereas a cheerful helpful and a warm hospital would

certainly be a place where people would visit to seek cure

Reputation/Reputation/Reputation:- A bad reputation would kill

your hospital and would kill it faster than you say jack robinson.

keep this in mind always and every time. things going wrong is one

thing hiding them below the carpet, lying to patients, not following

up on service recoveries would sound the death knell of even the

most well known hospitals. repeat these mistakes and you can say

TATA to re-visits or recommendations to others to visit your

hospital. No patient/ attendant should ever go unsatisfied or at least

unheard by the authorities. Listening is a great art , develop it and

listen to every one and take actions ASAP

Develop skills and keep abreast of technology:- Get that latest

sonography machine , the new LASER advertise it , let the public

know of that very best technology that you recently acquired and

how would it help the patients get a better treatment.Advertise your

doctors skills , if they carried out a difficult/first time ever

procedure.let the world know what the hospital and its staff is doing

and you have scored a great marketing victory

Empathise and be a good human:- Want to be good at

commanding the hospitals be a good human being, revenues and

EBITDA margins improve automatically when you start looking at

your job in a more humane angle, keeping excellence in service to

the patients paramount meeting them and their attendants

regularly, keeping your staff motivated and wanting to excel, giving

a small discount to a needy patient would never hurt your business ,

but trying to extract an extra pound of flesh from them would

certainly take you to dangerous waters

So you want to command a hospital, all the very best remember

good leaders are the ones whom humans follow for advise , for

action for results. Take decisions, strengthen your team members ,

stand by them and give them wings to fly and you will see see

wonderful results.

Navanj