'At your service’ assistants for pleasant hospital visits

Customer relation assistants sporting blue ‘May I Help You’ jackets have already been deployed at Rashid Hospital. — Supplied photo

Patients and families visiting the Dubai Health Authority (DHA) hospitals and health centres can now seek guidance from people specifically designated to look after customers, from the time they enter to their exit.

The new initiative has already been implemented in Rashid Hospital and will soon be done in Dubai and Latifa Hospitals, a DHA official said. The customer relation assistants (CRAs) will be wearing bright blue jackets sporting ‘May I help you’ slogans. Known as ‘At Your Service’, the initiative aims to provide a pleasant hospital experience to its patients and family members.

DHA Director-General Essa Al Maidoor recently announced the deployment of on-site CRAs across all DHA facilities. He inaugurated the initiative by wearing the blue jacket and taking a tour of the premises of Rashid Hospital with team members from the customer relations department.

“Our aim is to create successful medical outcomes and hospitable human experiences for our patients,” he said.

“Customer care and excellent medical services are not isolated concepts, they go hand-in-hand, and in the future, customers will see many such initiatives aimed at making their hospital experience pleasant.”

Al Maidoor said 200 CRAs would be deployed across all DHA hospitals and health centres. Before the launch of the initiative, Al Maidoor addressed all the CRAs at a forum that was held at the Rashid Medical Library. “All CRAs have already received training. They are bi-lingual — they speak English and Arabic — and can address queries on finance, (administration), insurance, location, billing and other such issues. On-site patient support is essential to make the hospital experience pleasant,” said Customer Relations Department Director Shaikha Al Rahoomi.

“In the first phase, we will deploy CRAs across all hospitals and in the second, we will extend this service across all our primary healthcare centres and medical fitness centres.”

Feedback and queries can be sent through the ‘Wassel Sotak initiative’, an online feedback platform. By the end of 2014, the DHA will also introduce initiatives such as the Customer Satisfaction Index, she said.

“Before exiting the premises of DHA hospitals and primary health care centres, customers will be able to press the ‘happy’ or ‘unhappy’ button through an electronic interface, and the rating will appear on the screen in the form of red and green bars. The service empowers customers to express their opinion.”

The DHA headquarters will have an interface where customer satisfaction can be viewed in real time.

In addition to this initiative, the DHA also recently announced the deployment of 3,000 Android tablets across every patient bed and waiting areas of all hospitals and health centres, to provide customers with access to the internet and health education apps, while they are waiting for their appointments.

asmaalizain@khaleejtimes.com

• UAE