Patient Representative

St. Elizabeth Healthcare•Edgewood, KY

About The Position

The Patient Representative is responsible for acting as a conduit between the patient, families, and Emergency Room staff implementing and participating in customer service activities to ensure extraordinary patient experience. Proactively address issues or potential problems to minimize complaints. Track and document types of interactions with patients and based on identified metrics of interest. Associates will work with patients, guests, and staff to resolve any complaints and provide immediate service recovery. Demonstrate respect, dignity, kindness and empathy in each encounter with all patients, families, visitors and other employees regardless of cultural background.

Requirements

High School Diploma, or equivalent.
Demonstrated ability to work with a diverse population.
Must have strong customer service and communication skills both written and verbal.
Ability to handle difficult patient and family situations constructively.
Skilled in interacting with physicians/senior leadership.
Skilled in sensitivity awareness.
Able to apply insight and sound judgment in stressful situations.
Able to assess and resolve operational and system problems.
Ability to work with minimal supervision.
Adaptability with high tolerance for ambiguous work situations.
Must demonstrate ability to utilize Microsoft Office products.
2 years of experience in complaint management, conflict resolution and customer service in healthcare environment.

Responsibilities

Serve as a liaison in the Emergency Room between the patient, staff, and the organization.
Help meet the needs of the patient and their guest to ensure their stay is as comfortable as possible. For example, ordering food trays for patients and their guests when appropriate.
Complete frequent check-ins on patients and their families while they wait to ensure their needs are being met.
Assist patients and their guests in obtaining amenities as needed from onsite locations to be more comfortable (e.g. ordering food from the cafeteria and purchasing items as needed from gift shop).
Identify potential issues that may result in a complaint or grievance and address immediately.
Communication information about the hospital’s policies and procedures, information patients, families, and other guests of hospital services available to them to make their experience better.
Listen to patient concerns and communicate special needs of patient/family/visitor with staff and when appropriate escalate issues to appropriate parties.
Make suggestions and recommendations to improve customer service processes.
Provide coverage and assistance to other locations in absence of assigned personnel.
Assist clinical and non-clinical personnel meeting the needs of the patient and their guest.
Retrieving needed items for the comfort of patients (pillows, inventory bags to store patient’s personal items, locating a wheelchair, beverages, food items, etc.).
Track problem areas and identifies trends.
Prepare reports and communicate with department managers/ senior administration on regular basis.
Identify recurring problems; make recommendations; and assist in resolutions and opportunities for improvement in service delivery.
Participate in the development of policies and procedures related to patient rights and satisfaction.
Participate on committees, work groups, and/or process improvement teams that improve patient/customer satisfaction.
Attend staff meetings and mandatory in-service training sessions.
Performs other duties as assigned.