Customer Service Centers Are Gaining

Momentum in Hospitals
By Cynthia Hayward
Originally printed in the
SpaceMed Newsletter
Spring 2008
www.spacemed.com

BACKGROUND
In the traditional healthcare facility, multiple departments and staff are involved in
customer intake and processing activities, including reception, admitting and registration, coordination of multiple appointments, cashiering, insurance verification,
and physician referrals. This typically results in fragmented customer service and
complicated wayfinding. Although many of these departments are located on the
first floor of the facility, only a few staff in each department actually have face-toface interaction with visitors, patients, and their families. The question is: How can
a healthcare organization better utilize both its staff and space to potentially enhance operational efficiency and improve customer service?
CURRENT TREND
With the continuing focus on patient-centered care and emergence of multihospital
systems, information technology, and reengineering techniques, the trend is to
consolidate customer intake, processing, and support services into a single
operational unit. Such units are often referred to as a customer service center,
patient service center, or similar designation. The term customer can refer to
visitors, family members, employers, insurers, physicians, staff, and vendors, in
addition to the patient who is scheduled for an interview, examination, procedure,
or admission.
The customer service center serves as the primary patient and visitor intake, processing, and communication area for a healthcare facility or campus and also includes centralized patient/visitor amenities. The customer service center should be
located directly inside the primary entrance to the healthcare complex to serve as
the initial access point for visitors and most scheduled patients. This area can also
function as a home base for family members and visitors who are spending increased time at the facility as more treatments and procedures are performed on a
same-day basis.

KEY COMPONENTS
Functional components of the customer service center typically include:
Central reception/intake and communication area including the entrance vestibule, initial reception/communication station for dissemination of
information and wayfinding, patient/visitor lounge, discharge lounge, and
other amenities for patients and visitors (e.g., public toilets, phones, ATM
machine, Internet kiosk).
Patient processing services including admitting, registration, insurance
verification, scheduling, cashiering, billing questions, financial counseling,
discharge planning, physician referral, patient/guest relations, and security.
Other optional services and amenities such as a patient library or
education center, an outpatient/retail pharmacy, coffee shop, gift shop,
spiritual/pastoral care, and support space for volunteers.

2008.1.2

Copyright SpaceMed

www.spacemed.com

Page 1 of 2

Customer Service
Centers Are Gaining
Momentum in
Hospitals
Continued

FACILITY IMPACT
In this model, all staff work together as a team to provide quality care in an expedient manner. The staff are often cross-trained and report organizationally to a single
manager, rather than to multiple department managers. Patient satisfaction generally improves as wayfinding is simplified, patient throughput is expedited, waiting
times decrease, and continuity of care improves thus reducing operational costs.
Less space is needed on the first floor (i.e., prime real estate) and staff not directly
involved in face-to-face customer contact can be relocated.
Patient processing and support services are being affected by numerous initiatives.
The emergence of multihospital systems and advances in information technology
are influencing the demand for, and configuration of, these services. At the same
time, institutionwide reengineering is challenging traditional, inefficient organizational structures and operational systems.
CONCLUSION
The healthcare industry is beginning to look to the hospitality industry for solutions
to ongoing customer service problems resulting from archaic organizational structures and inadequate information systems. For example, when a customer visits a
hotel, he/she is met by a central reception desk and comfortable lobby immediately
upon entry. At this central reception desk, the customer can receive, or be networked with, any needed services including registration, paying his/her bill, receiving/sending faxes, getting directions, making a special request regarding housekeeping services, arranging transportation, or scheduling a massage. Yet the
healthcare industry requires that its customers visit multiple locations and interact
with multiple staff and fragmented systems assuming that they first determine
the appropriate access point for their needed service. The customer service center
concept replicates the main reception desk or hub found in an upscale hotel and
connects its customers to various other services or spokes that may be remote.
Cynthia Hayward, AIA, is founder and principal of Hayward & Associates LLC.

2008.1.2

Copyright SpaceMed

www.spacemed.com

Page 2 of 2