Question

As clinic manager, you want to find ways to improve your client's satisfaction in your large clinic. You know of a company that "infiltrates" your clinic and actually "pretends" to be some of your clients. The company's "clients" call to make appointments, come in to see your providers, use your laboratories, and other ancillary services. A report is made to the employers. It becomes an ongoing practice to help you identify areas for improvement. You use the report to educate your staff.If you are a staff person, what do you think of this practice?Should the results regarding a particular individual be used in the employee evaluation?

Answer 1

Professional liability:

Professional liability can be defined as the risk that an individual can get sued for causing damage to another individual for personal benefit due to their work. However, if the individual causes damage to the other on grounds that are not related to their work, then it is personal liability.

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Staff person’s opinion on the ongoing practice:

The practice of intimidating another company that takes interest in infiltrating other firms, here the clinic, to collect information about the clinic is merely unethical. The services the clinic provides or its uniquely featured laboratories are its private properties. The act of pretending to be a client and visiting the clinic to collect its private information and deliberately sharing the same to one of its competitors is malpractice. The act of secretly infiltrating to gather personal information about the clinic is in itself an unethical practice. Taking permissions to analyze and learn from them instead would be a more professional way to proceed.

As a staff, I would not be satisfied with the process as there are standard measures that could be adopted by the manager to improve the client’s satisfaction level and identify other areas of improvement. Some of the measures to improve employees’ performance and grow the business are listed below:

• Perform within the scope of training
• Conform to the regulations and laws designed for health professionals
• Maintain safety in the clinic and keeping equipment in readiness
• Practice standard precautions meticulously
• Recruit employees effectively and making efforts for teamwork
• Maintain confidentiality in client information
• Strive to grow professionally
• Restrict practices to the number of clients that can be managed

Moreover, client satisfaction level can be improved in the following suggested ways:

• Put into practice the act of listening to the client without interruption
• Give the clients the opportunity to ask questions
• Declaration of formal statements and reports in writing and sharing a copy to the client
• Avoid criticizing other practitioners
• Explain any delays in appointments or official processes with patience. Avoid making the clients wait for more than 20 minutes
• Treat everyone equally and politely
• Never assure a cure

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Employee evaluation:

Employee evaluation can be defined as the process of assessing or reviewing an employee’s performance.

In the given case, the process of evaluating the performance of all the employees on the basis of results regarding a particular individual is not a very good idea. The performance of employees would vary from person to person. There might be some who are performing even below the set parameter. In such a case, it would negatively impact the business and would be a huge risk. Similarly, evaluating employees who are performing extremely well on the same grounds would disappoint them significantly. It may also lead to resignations or poor performance in the future due to dissatisfaction.