Quote:
Originally Posted by golfing eagles
Very true. And there are 2 other factors:
1) the complainers are generally very vocal
2) People hear what they want to hear and believe what they want as well, regardless of the facts.
As Chief of Staff, I once had a family member complain to me that a physician walked into her mother's room and said "Aren't you dead yet?". That physician was one of the best I've known, and when I had to speak to him about it, we both laughed. What he said was nothing like that.
Also, the spectrum of what sets people off is very wide and often exaggerated. I can't count the number of times people complained about long wait times in our ER---"I waited 7 hours to be seen". Since their arrival time, time of triage, time evaluated by the ER nurse and time first seen by the ER doc was all logged, I could confront the complaint head on. The best was "I hear what you are saying, but the time from your arrival to being seen by the doctor was 37 minutes---perhaps your watch is broken". That of course was challenged with "They're lying". And in turn, I would respond with "computer time stamps don't lie". They would walk away unswayed and unhappy, convinced that they were right. Others would be set off by "cold food", even though patient food temps were measured by thermometer and recorded. Or I rang the call bell and the nurse took "hours" to respond. These times are also monitored so of course it was, well, a misperception to put it kindly. People are very often quite off their game when they or a relative are sick.
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"Very true. And there are 2 other factors:
1) the complainers are generally very vocal
2) People hear what they want to hear and believe what they want as well, regardless of the facts."
Absolutely. As Winston Churchill once said, "a lie can get halfway around the world before the truth can get it's pants on". It is why I am suspicious of "reviews", be they on Amazon, bar chatter, posts following an article or wherever. They are at best subjective interpretations of events made by people who may have little or no knowledge of the situation or the facts beyond their own often emotionally clouded perception. One ax-grinder can generate one hell of a lot of negativity.
That said however, an overall bad reputation is rarely the fault of just a few ax-grinders. The Villages Hospital MAY have turned the corner on quality of care. I recall not too many months back they hired a new head honcho (can't remember the exact title) and that MAY have made a positive difference. Staff expertise and competence MAY be at a level or even above that of any other area hospital. All that MAY be a fact, today.
But I will take the Villages Hospital some time, perhaps years, to prove it and thereby outlive it's reputation.