Pharmacy student, James Herbert joins us today.

Our guest blogger this week is James Herbert, a Pharm D Student at South College School of Pharmacy, Knoxville, TN. He is a Husband, Father, Doctor Who fan, science fiction fan, philosophy-theology aficionado, and ex-IT guy with dreams of using informatics and technology to enhance pharmacy’s role in improving patients lives. He says, “I’m just a regular guy livin’ the dream because in the end aren’t we all?”

His topic addresses a situation begun decades ago and is now coming to a head. We introduced this subject last week with an article regarding the re-branding of patients to customers. Herbert believes there’s more to it than just semantics.

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James Herbert

A paradigm shift in healthcare begun years ago, speeds toward the downgrade of the patient to a statistical economic construct.
Patients are now being referred to as customers.
This is a dangerous shift that moves the focus of the patient’s medical needs towards the consumption of goods and services. Consumption of services does not require the relationship between patient and healthcare provider necessary for patient care. The purpose of healthcare is to provide appropriate care to patients. This shift away from the fundamental principle of personal attention is detrimental to the public health.
“Customer” is an economic term: A party that receives or consumes products (goods or services) and has the ability to choose between different products and suppliers.1 A patient is a person who has a medical need. In times of an emergency a patient does not have the luxury of choosing who provides their care. In cases of extreme emergency they have no say what so ever. Patients do not consume the “goods” and “services” of healthcare in the same way they would in a traditional retail environment. You will not see patients lined up at a hospital door on black Friday for example.
Dorland’s Medical Dictionary (2008) defines patient care as the services rendered by members of the health profession and non-professionals under their supervision for the benefit of the patient
Taking care of customers is commonly called customer service. “Customer service is a series of activates designed to enhance the level of customer satisfaction –that is, the feeling that a product or service has met the customer expectation.”2
Customer satisfaction is measured by the satisfaction survey. Here is where the disconnect begins
A survey, by its very nature, limits itself to the chosen parameters. That is to say that there are “buckets” that are being weighed as they are “checked off” in the survey. It is in this way that the customer is reduced to a set of statistics. In surveys, the person is irrelevant, it is the data that is important. Chosen members of management chose the parameters.
Data identifies trends and trends can be impacted by a series of scripted efforts. These efforts are called metrics. Metrics reduce customer service to a series of equations. CVS uses Triple S and KPM metrics3 in order to quantify and improve service performance. Customer expectations can be manipulated in scripted measures. Sitting down with a customer influences their perception of the amount of time spent with them4. Adding key words or phrases to encourage additional purchases is another scripted method of providing customer service (See CVS Pharmacy Business Metrics Paper)
Pharmacy may be measured by its Triple S and KPM or similar metrics but for hospitals to be reimbursed for providing care to those with Medicare/Medicaid, HCAHPS is the golden standard. Press Ganey is the leading provider of patient satisfaction surveys designed to help meet the HCAHPS requirements.

The manipulation of satisfaction scores may have nothing to do with providing safe and ethical healthcare. In one case a physician was able to achieve a 7% improvement in his satisfaction scores by prescribing an antibiotic to all his patients who complained of a cough, sore throat or sinus headache5. Managing low scores can lead physicians to prescribe powerful opiates for toothaches6. Healthcare professionals under pressure to meet metrics, forego patient care to perform customer service. The result is that most satisfied patients tend to be those who have higher healthcare cost, drug expenses, and most shockingly, have higher deaths rates than those who do not feel satisfied with their care7. The customer purchases their “good” but they may not get care for their health.
The retail pharmacy chain is the end game when customer service once and for all trumps patient care. In the retail setting, “wait times”, scripts per hour, and profit margins are king7. The pharmacist as healthcare provider is no longer part of the business model. Overwhelmed with hundreds if not thousands of script per day and skeleton staffing the pharmacist’s role is reduced to that of a dispensing machine. The result is they are not perceived as healthcare professionals. One woman demanded: “Please just do your jobs and fill what you see and stop trying to make yourself something you are not”9. In retail chain pharmacy healthcare is not important. Customer service is. Customer service quantified by metrics.
When results are all that mater then there is no “person” behind the customer or patient. They have been dehumanized. All that is left is the data. People do not get treatment. Data gets manipulated. Customers are not getting service. Data gets manipulated. When all that matters is the data, then the ends justifies the means. Metrics and surveys, by their very nature, dehumanize people.
The future of healthcare is freighting if the focus does not turn back to personal patient care. A therapeutic relationship addressing a patient’s medical need with personal and individual care, trust, and understanding. This includes a healthcare provider who has a specialized set of knowledge and skills that are not available on website, a television ad, or a talk show.
When raw, sterile numbers take precedent over warm flesh, people are no longer in the equation.

Without people there is neither health–nor care.

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References:

# http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/customer.html
# Turban, Efraim (2002). Electronic Commerce: A Managerial Perspective. Prentice Hall. ISBN 0-13-185461-5.
# CVS Pharmacy Business Metrics: http://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/472510/250510-rx-tg.pdf
# Simple tips to improve patient satisfaction http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/743875?src=mp&spon=25#vp_2
# Patient Satisfaction is Overrated: http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/821288
# Why rating your doctor is bad for your health: http://www.forbes.com/sites/kaifalkenberg/2013/01/02/why-rating-your-doctor-is-bad-for-your-health/
# Patient satisfaction linked to higher health-care expenses and mortality http://www.ucdmc.ucdavis.edu/publish/news/newsroom/6223
# Pharmacists: Corporate greed putting patients at risk http://www.khou.com/story/news/investigations/2014/11/06/iteam-prescription-errors/18591573/
# LETTER: Pharmacists aren’t doctors http://www.courierpostonline.com/story/opinion/readers/2014/11/17/letter-pharmacists-doctors/19044977/