"Boot Camp" Offers Insights on the Patient Experience

Online, February 8, 2010 (Newswire.com) - Baird Consulting Group will present its Patient Experience Boot Camp¬-The Mystery Shoppers' Guide to Creating Loyal Fans on six consecutive Tuesdays from March 2 - April 6, 2010. Each 90-minute webinar session will run from 11a.m.-12:30 p.m. CST (noon-1:30 p.m. EST; 10-11:30 MST; 9:00-10:30 PST).

The webinar format for these sessions allow any number of people to participate from a location of their choice - no individual registration fees and no travel expenses. All sessions will be recorded and provided to registrants for their review - and to share with those who are unable to attend the live sessions.

Both health care leaders and frontline staff will benefit from this course. Health care teams are encouraged to attend together for an opportunity to critically examine the organization's vision for excellence and learn about tools that can be readily implemented to improve patient care and service.

The six week course will teach leaders and staff about the crucial elements required to enhance the patient experience. Attendees will learn how to build trust, credibility and create greater loyalty among patients through drills and exercises that will help them see the experience from the patient perspective. Sessions include:

 Session One: Gaining Traction on a Patient-Centered Culture (Kristin Baird, RN, MHA; Kevin Stranberg, MBA)
 Session Two: Beyond Hello - Phone Skills That Engage (Baird, along with Jennifer Snow and Leah Tongate from Beryl, an award-winning health care call center that handles over five million calls annually.)
 Session Three: Beyond the Signs - Communication for Optimal Wayfinding (Baird, along with Mark VanderKlipp and Robert Bergman, Corbin Design.
 Session Four: Making Communication Count in Every Encounter (Baird and Stranberg)
 Session Five: The Healing Environment - A Multisensory Experience (Baird and Kahler Slater Architects)
 Session Six: Preparing for Goodbye - Last Impressions are Lasting Impressions (Baird, Willard, Beryl)

Health care reform and rising concerns about cost and quality are challenging health care organizations to find innovative ways to meet growing demands from patients and regulators. These sessions offer an intense, away-from-the-hospital experience for participants to take off their "clinical hats" and really consider the patient experience.

For more information, call 1-866-868-7672, or visit www.baird-consulting.com.

###

About Kristin Baird

Author, nurse and consultant, Kristin Baird is a health care industry expert on culture transformation for optimal patient experience. Baird is the author of Raising the Bar on Service Excellence, The Health Care Leader's Guide for Putting Passion into Practice, (2008, Golden Lamp Press) Customer Service in Health Care; A Grassroots Approach to Creating a Culture of Service Excellence, (Jossey Bass and American Hospital Association Publishing - 2000), and Reclaiming the Passion; Stories That Celebrate the Essence of Nursing (Golden Lamp Press 2005).

Kevin Stranberg, MBA is a senior consultant with the Baird Group. Stranberg's expertise in diagnosing culture and facilitating change has been instrumental in transforming organizational culture in a multitude of health care organizations. Stranberg is an experienced service coach, facilitator and trainer who frequently shares the podium with Baird on the national speaking and training circuit.

Jennifer Snow and Leah Tongate lead a powerhouse training group for Beryl's call advisors who field over five million calls for thousands of health care organizations each year. Their hiring, training and performance scorecard techniques ensure that Beryl's call advisors create a great first impression.

Mark VanderKlipp and Robert Bergman lead a team of experts from Corbin Design who have mastered the art and science of wayfinding. Their approach has been instrumental in designing better patient experiences through simplified, clear and practical wayfinding.

KahlerSlater is an award-winning architectural design firm with over 100 years of experience in transformational design. Their expertise in creating a healing environment has earned the firm national acclaim in health care design.

Mark Willard is Senior Vice President of Product Development for Beryl. Under his leadership, Beryl has expanded its call center services to include discharge phone calls. The company has been the industry leader in call center management handling over 5 million calls annually.

About Baird Consulting
The Wisconsin-based firm guides health care organizations in creating mission-driven, service-centered cultures that support the optimal patient experience. They achieve this through culture assessment/diagnosis, medical mystery shopping, leadership development and employee engagement. Since the mid-1990s, Baird has helped health care organizations nationwide to improve the patient experience and enhance organizational culture. Baird's culture assessment and diagnosis includes experience mapping, medical mystery shopping and focus groups to reveal the real customer experience in health care organizations. Using patient experiences, Kristin Baird and her team prescribe critical next steps for improving patient satisfaction and HCAHPS scores.

For more information, visit www.baird-consulting.com.