October 27, 2013

Role Play Assignment

Services Failure & Recovery at Hospital

Instructor: Dr. Amber Gul Rashid

Prepared By: Hassan Jamal Muhammad Furqan Kukda Muhammad Jibran Ilyas Muhammad Mudassar Shahid Rana Muhammad Kashan

Introduction:
The purpose of this assignment is to highlight how service failure can occur in a hospital because of procedural constraints and what the doctors and staff can do to be flexible and recover the service or avoid service to fail in the first place. This assignment highlights our own experiences of procedural hassles at hospitals when a patient is to be admitted urgently and is written in a narrative format with fictional characters below.

Narrative:
Zahid was hit by a bullet on his knee on his way home at the middle of the night. He was immediately taken to the nearest government hospital, and his family was informed. He was given basic medial treatment. As per the procedure, the Medico Legal Officer present at the hospital was called for the registration of the gunshot wound and prepare the MLO report. Since the bullet went through this flesh around the knee area, the hospital staff cleaned the wound and patched it up to stop it from bleeding and getting infected. X-ray showed only a hair-line fracture on the knee joint. On his way back home with his family, the wound opened up, therefore, his brother Shahid rushed him to the nearest hospital (a private one) to get the wound re-dressed. When Shahid went to the receptionist and asked him to temporarily admit Zahid and ask a doctor to look at his wound, he looked at Zahids knee and asked what had happened. Shahid realized that since it was a gunshot wound, the hospital might be a bit reluctant to take on the case which might lead to a lot of blood loss for Zahid, therefore, he concealed that fact and kept on urging the receptionist to get the wound checked. However, the receptionist was constantly asking for the reason behind such a deep and grave wound. Zahid was in a lot of pain because of contact bleeding and eventually got upset with the argument and angrily told the receptionist that he was hit by a bullet. The receptionist asked for the MLO report and refused to admit him to the hospital after Shahid told him that he had forgotten to bring it along despite repeated assurances by Shahid that he will bring the MLO report next day. Shahid even tried to call the MLO who did the report to provide as an evidence but the officer was not picking up the phone. Dr. Shah saw the situation and asked the receptionist as to why Zahid wasnt being admitted. When the receptionist told the reason, Dr. Shah strictly told the receptionist not to admit Zahid and told Shahid that this was a police case and they could get into trouble if the procedure was not followed. Shahid tried to convince Dr. Shah that the police had registered the case and he will bring the MLO
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report next day but Dr. Shah ignored him and went away. Zahid and Shahid decided to walk out of the hospital in frustration when they encountered Dr. Afridi. Dr. Afridi saw Zahids knee was bleeding badly and told Shahid to take Zahid back to emergency room immediately. Shahid and Zahid told Dr. Afridi about the response of his hospital staff in anger after which Dr. Afridi told them not to worry and asked them to come along. The receptionist saw them pass by and informed Dr. Afridi telling him that it was a police case and they did not have the MLO report. Shahid assured Dr. Afridi that he had forgotten the report and will bring it early morning next day. Dr. Afridi asked Shahid to submit his original NIC to the receptionist for the time being and asked him to bring the MLO report early morning and ordered the receptionist to admit the patient. Shahid and Zahid thanked the doctor for his cooperation and Zahid was admitted for treatment.

Service Failure:
The response of both the receptionist and Dr. Shah is an example of service failure as both ignored Zahids injury completely and were only concerned about their own procedures failing to realize what could possibly happen to the patient if he was not treated immediately. They could have been more flexible to their rules and if they did not have that authority, they could have contacted the higher management or supervisor, Dr. Afridi immediately to help sort out the situation but they did not even do that.

Service Recovery and Service Flexibility:

Dr. Afridis response to the situation is an example of both service recovery and flexibility where he clearly showed more concern for the patient than the procedural hassle. His decision to take Shahids NIC as an assurance that he will bring the MLO report next morning is an example of service flexibility where he found a way to not just protect the hospital from getting into any kind of legal trouble in a police case while also taking care of the fact that the patient needed treatment urgently. Another aspect of good service is that he was ready to trust Shahids word considering the situation that he and Zahid were in.

Flower of Service (for the hospital):

Core service
Providing healthcare.

Information
The receptionist serves as a source of information.

Hospitality
The availability of wheelchair, facility of multiple payment modes (cash, credit cards etc), cash counters and ATM facility and general caring attitude of doctors, nurses and medical

superintendents.

Billing
According to treatment of patient.

Payment
Can be done through separate cash counters and other modes of payment such as cheques and credit cards.
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Order Taking
Receptionist on supervisors advice decides whether to admit the patients and when and where to admit them.

Exemption
Dr. Afridi allowing the patient to be admitted after submission of Shahids NIC despite him not having the MLO report which was part of hospital procedure.

Consultation
Patients data card, proper guidance by Dr. Afridi to receptionist in front of Shahid.

Note:
Certain theoretical and narrative points mentioned in the report will be part of the role play so as to build the story and background for better understanding of the concepts.