Selecting Patient Escorts Essay Example
Selecting Patient Escorts Essay Example

Selecting Patient Escorts Essay Example

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  • Pages: 5 (1214 words)
  • Published: November 23, 2017
  • Type: Research Paper
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Summary

The City Hospital is renowned for treating notable individuals, including professional football players, movie stars, and top executives. To maintain their reputation for outstanding customer service and professionalism, the hospital is actively seeking patient escorts. Patient escorts have a crucial role in moving patients within the hospital. However, there has been an increase in patient complaints about the performance of the patient escort team. Despite its simplicity, being a patient escort holds great significance as they are often the last person patients interact with before leaving the hospital.

Among the 40 patient escorts, turnover is high and some frequently move to different positions within the hospital. This results in a yearly replacement need of approximately half of the escorts. The hospital has a set hiring process which involves the HR department reviewing applicant files, interviewing two or

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three candidates, and requiring a physical exam for those hired. Once hired, new escorts participate in an orientation and receive on-the-job training from their supervisor. However, a concern with the patient escorts is the significant increase in patient complaints about their behavior over the past two years.

Complaints were received about impolite and rough treatment, with patients unable to remember the names of their escorts. Administrators were unable to address this behavior and decided to modify the hiring process for patient escorts. This involved considering relevant laws, HR practices, issues, and alternatives in order to prevent the recruitment of rude or insulting individuals. Finding a candidate who meets basic criteria is only half of what is required for hiring a productive employee. Organizations have created various methods to effectively filter and train both potential candidates and experienced employees on thei

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ideal core competencies. These methods include providing detailed job descriptions, administering aptitude tests, and offering rigorous training. The aim is to hire well-rounded employees who perform well in all areas. A detailed job description is the first step in finding exceptional candidates as it outlines the duties, requirements, and benefits of a particular position. This information helps screen potential applicants before receiving any resumes. For example, a tax accountant job description may include responsibilities such as attention to detail, strong computer skills, willingness to work long hours during tax season, and a passion for numbers.

Requirements: A bachelor’s degree in business administration with a concentration in accountancy, along with at least four continuous years of experience in corporate tax accounting.

Benefits: Starting salary of $50,000, three weeks of paid vacation, and full medical coverage within two weeks of employment.

This comprehensive yet concise description effectively informs potential applicants of the expectations.

In addition to that, aptitude and personality testing are valuable methods for assessing the skills and temperament of potential employees. They also help determine if current workers possess the necessary skill set and qualities to succeed in their respective roles.

One widely used corporate personality test is the Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), developed in the 1920s by Kathryn Briggs and Isabelle Myers. It involves a 93-question forced answer questionnaire to measure participants' nature.

Many large corporations, including JP Morgan Chase and General Electric, utilize a condensed 70-question version of this survey as an effective tool for recruitment and employee development.

The MBTI test classifies people into different subsets based on their preferences: Extroversion (E) vs. Introversion (I), Sensing (S) vs. Intuition (N), Thinking (T) vs. Feeling (F), and Judging (J)

vs. Perceiving (P). By totaling and grouping each personality type, the test gives a descriptive summary of the participant's personality type. For instance, ESFP individuals are characterized as outgoing, friendly, and accepting; they bring joy to others by living in the present moment. They enjoy taking action, staying informed, and readily participating in practical and common-sense situations.

Having detailed information of an employee’s character is invaluable when deciding on who should be placed together in team projects or as an additional tool when evaluating if an interviewee can handle escorting irritable patients. Explicit recommendations for future course of action have been made, as mentioned above, the turnover rate among patient escorts is about twenty-five percent. Additionally, another twenty-five percent of the employees move to other positions within the hospital. Therefore, the hospital replaces about fifty percent of the patient escorts annually. This results in City Hospital spending a significant portion of their profits on hiring, interviewing, recruiting, and training new employees. It is much more cost effective to attract and retain the best patient escorts within the hospital. To decrease employee turnover rate, we have suggested that the hospital should challenge the employees by adding responsibilities and increasing the variety of tasks. Furthermore, exceptional employees should be recognized by commending them and even giving bonuses for a job well done.

In addition, City Hospital should consider offering higher pay and better benefits as they continue to expand. While there are opportunities for advancement within the hospital, many patients leave for other job opportunities. To address this issue, we recommend promoting patient escorts to various positions within the field, such as senior patient escorts, supervisors, or even involving

them in the hiring and training process. This would also help resolve another problem at City Hospital, which is the difficulty of identifying escorts. Despite the requirement of wearing name tags, patients often cannot recall the name of their escort when asked. To resolve this, we suggest implementing a log sheet to track escorts and their respective patients. This log sheet would provide a record of which escort accompanied each patient and at what time.

City Hospital is attempting to improve their process for hiring patient escorts in order to prevent the hiring of individuals who are rude, insulting, or careless. They have discussed various suggestions during a meeting, including adding personality-related questions to the application, requiring three letters of recommendation, conducting stress-inducing interviews, and implementing an attitude test. While these suggestions are commendable, we propose additional recommendations such as providing customer service training programs, adopting behavioral style interviewing techniques, and administering personality tests in the selection process.

City Hospital should invest in a customer service training program that includes role play scenarios, proper patient handling techniques, and training in new customer service techniques. The role plays will demonstrate how escorts interact with patients and their reactions in various situations. By implementing ongoing training programs, the hospital ensures continuous and consistent improvement. Furthermore, the hospital should gather customer feedback through surveys, suggestion boxes, or occasional interviews with patients to identify areas for improvement in their customer service experience. This feedback can then be addressed in the hospital's customer service programs.

The behavioral style interview is the most reliable way to predict future performance. It asks questions about past behavior and performance to assess aptitude in customer service, interpersonal

skills, and effective interaction with different types of people. In addition, the personality test evaluates essential traits for the patient escort position.

Conclusion

A more comprehensive selection method can resolve City Hospitals' patient escort problem.

By giving more focus to individuals with exceptional personalities, attitudes, and work habits, City Hospital can address some of the problems. Our suggested recommendations can be integrated into their new hiring process. Taking additional measures to understand the true nature of these individuals, monitoring their interactions, and observing their responses in simulated scenarios can assist in identifying and eliminating unsuitable candidates.

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