There can't be two #1's...that's 11

I know how hard it is to be #1, and being the #1 Hospital in the country for the past 18 years means that Johns Hopkins deals with some of the same pressures I go through on a daily basis. The problem is that every hospital in the country paints this massive target on Hopkins in their never-ending goal of toppling the juggernaut of a hospital. Though there are dozens of parameters taken into consideration to determine hospital rankings I was very surprised at how influential the department of pharmacy was in a particular area, customer service. The patient/customer experience at the pharmacy counter is a vital component to the continued success of this hospital. There are three projects that I am working on in conjunction with other interns to monitor and improve customer service in the pharmacy.
The first project is the start of a Secret/Mystery Shopper program for the pharmacy. This project is actually let by another intern Rami, a P3 student from Harding who I work with on a regular basis. We attacked this project from several angles as we decided to not only monitor and evaluate the pharmacy via a physical shopper but also phone calls, fax's, and e-mail directed to the pharmacy. After identifying key components of customer service that we wanted to focus on we then set realistic expectations mainly composed of "Benchmark" projections. Benchmark is an actual company that sets standards in customer service along various venues from fast food to health care. We then consulted the managers of each outpatient pharmacy to their perception of how their pharmacy treats it's clientele. A private company has been contracted to conduct the evaluation and we hope to receive the results before the end of the summer.
The next project is the Wait Time Study, this is actually done by the interns each summer. I will lead the project to determine the customer perception of how long it takes to get a prescription. This is not to be confused with Lead Time which is how long it takes to actually fill a prescription and do the billing, blah blah blah. It's an observational study (nod to Welage/330) as all the interns will get their turn to visit all the pharmacies during various business hours/days to see if we are doing a good job or not. We will compile the data into a presentation that I will present to some rather important people around the end of July.
The third and probably not the last project is the implementation of new technology that should lessen wait time and lead time in the pharmacy. Ok so new technology is a really generous term, essentially is a scanner that links to the pharmacy. This new program asks that when patients check into the hospital for any reason, inpatient, specialist, clinical, or even just a normal check up, that when they take the medical card they also take the patients prescription insurance card. What then happens is that this information is transferred to the pharmacy and the pharmacy can start claims and billing before the patient gets a physical script in their hand. In theory all of the dirty work will be done before the patient makes their way down to the pharmacy. With this project I'm working with the IT department to follow the installation, learn the program, then teach it to the pharmacy staff. How hard can it be, it's really an over-priced scanner but we'll have to see if it makes me lose more hair.
I will update on these projects as more develops. It sounds crazy but I am having a great time.