Committed to customer service
Children's Department of Orthopaedic Surgery

Among many improvements recently made by the department of Orthopaedics was the purchase of a new fluoroscope, which allows staff to perform basic extremity x-rays during office visits. Above, Peter Waters, MD eliminates the need for a patient to make separate trip to Radiology.

The department of Orthopaedic Surgery at Children’s Hospital Boston is working hard to improve access and customer service issues. Most recently, the department created a new Customer Service Team that uses feedback from patients, parents and referring physicians to tackle customer service issues.

The feedback they received confirmed that the department’s success also presents it’s greatest challenge: over the past few years, patient volume in the department has grown by over 20 percent to 160 patients per day, and the department fields over 1,300 calls every week. To deal with this unparalleled growth the department has added staff and increased training. It recently added three new physicians, two orthopaedic technicians, a nurse practitioner and a registered nurse to ease patient congestion. In addition, administrative staff now attend customer service training classes, and receive cross training so that employees can better support each other during busy times. Today, eight staff members are trained to take on both the practice assistant and the ambulatory service representative roles.

The Customer Service Team has also worked hard to streamline office visits and decrease patient wait time. They found that helping families prepare for their visit before ever coming to the hospital is one way to make things go more smoothly. Once families do arrive, they receive vibrating pagers so that they may leave the waiting room without losing their appointment slot. In addition, the department purchased a new fluoroscope to perform basic extremity x-rays during office visits, eliminating many patients’ separate trips to Radiology that can make a long visit even longer.

The Orthopaedic Customer Service Team plans to continue using patient, family and physician feedback to improve the level of service in the department.