Social workers - the mission of accompanying the sick

Bridge to the sick

The image of female staff wearing colorful Ao Dai, always smiling, enthusiastically welcoming, caring and supporting, has become very familiar to people when visiting Vinh General Hospital.

Warmly welcoming, caring, consulting and wholeheartedly supporting patients is a familiar image of the customer service staff at Vinh General Hospital. Photo: PV

Ms. Dinh Thi Dung (Nam Dan) is nearly 70 years old this year, has heart disease, and has to visit the hospital regularly. She shared: "When we come to the city hospital, we are welcomed by the consultants, guided and taken care of wholeheartedly, taken to each examination room and listened to the opinions and wishes to share and help the patients like family. Thanks to that, I feel truly secure and comfortable when entrusting my trust and health here."

Not only helping and guiding patients, every day the customer service staff also make hundreds of consulting calls via the hotline and every week they regularly visit each patient's room to inquire, encourage, share, listen to thoughts and wishes; to survey patient satisfaction, collect opinions and suggestions to build an increasingly better hospital.

Helping and supporting patients is the "mission" of social workers at hospitals. Photo: PV

Carrying out the “mission” of being a bridge to patients, few people know that behind that bright smile are the dedication and silent dedication… of social workers. The daily work of contacting hundreds of patients, the patients are often tired and uncomfortable, requiring social workers to be persistent, dedicated, attentive and sometimes humble to make patients satisfied and feel secure in their examination and treatment. There are also many patients who do not understand their job duties and therefore do not cooperate much. The pressure and difficulties are real, but their mindset is attached to the job considered a profession of compassion and love, so they are always devoted to the community. They always find joy and happiness from the joy of satisfaction and recovery of patients…

Efforts to innovate operations and serve patients

Carrying out the task of satisfying and meeting the increasing demand for medical services of the people, the hospital's social work department is always a pioneer in applying IT in administrative reform and management.

Instructing patients on how to use smart medical examination cards, helping to shorten waiting time and ensure transparency in the medical examination and treatment process. Photo: Duc Anh

In the past year, in addition to maintaining smart kiosks, smart queues, and reducing waiting time for patients, the department also coordinated to deploy additional forms of cashless payment (POS card swipe, QR-Pay, etc.) to reduce payment time and ensure financial transparency for patients; expanded the channel to receive automatic feedback from patients with "Patient dissatisfaction survey kiosk and Look up medical examination order number, perform paraclinical services", receiving many objective opinions; thereby helping the hospital to increasingly improve its services.

In 2019, customer service staff welcomed, guided, provided information, and introduced medical examination and treatment services to 529,517 outpatients; consulted an average of 79 patients upon request. Visited and surveyed patient satisfaction with 5,892 inpatients and outpatients; made 43,700 calls, of which 38,547 patients were very satisfied with the medical examination and treatment services at the hospital and collected 215 comments from patients. Partly thanks to the active survey of patient satisfaction by the department, the hospital is one of five district-level hospitals nationwide that voluntarily registered to participate, with a PSI satisfaction rate of 4.18 and ranked 2nd/5 district-level hospitals, ranked 12th/60 hospitals nationwide that were rated as excellent.

Every day, the hospital's customer service staff make hundreds of calls to consult via the switchboard, visit and receive patients' opinions. Photo: PV

Effective communication channels

Over time, the hospital's professional performance has been increasingly widespread, and its brand has been increasingly affirmed, partly thanks to the diversity of communication channels of social workers.

Visiting, encouraging, sharing, and listening to patients' thoughts and wishes are regular tasks of social workers at the hospital. Photo: Duc Anh

Accordingly, the Social Work Department has developed a health education communication plan for patients and organized its effective implementation. Develop content and documents to introduce and promote the hospital's image, services and activities to patients and the community through organizing activities, programs, events, conferences and seminars, in order to provide useful knowledge, improve public understanding and create opportunities for hospital doctors and nurses to improve their expertise.

The department has implemented the movement "Innovation in service style and attitude towards patient satisfaction" throughout the hospital through various forms such as internal communication, focusing on training to improve the spirit and communication skills of medical staff. At the same time, the department has actively participated in propaganda competitions, writing competitions and dramatizations of the industry about this movement; achieved high achievements: First prize in the province, one of the 20 units with the best writing nationwide, first prize overall and "Best skit" prize in the Central and Central Highlands regional competition, representing the region to participate in the national competition.

Mobilize funding and help poor patients

“Wherever there are poor patients in need of help, there are social workers” - with that motto, over the past year, the hospital’s social work department has called for and mobilized support for meals and treatment costs; helping dozens of poor patients overcome the pain of illness.

Practical and meaningful volunteer trips to visit, give gifts, and provide free medical examinations at Vinh City General Hospital. Photo: PV

They also connect practical, meaningful volunteer trips to patients and poor people. In the past year, the Department of Social Work - Quality Management has coordinated with the Youth Union Executive Committee to organize 4 programs of medical examination, consultation, free medicine and gift giving for people in especially difficult circumstances; coordinated to organize the program "Support to go to school" for students in remote areas; the program "Bowl of love porridge" for inpatients and outpatients, supporting charity meals for patients in especially difficult circumstances...

In order to maximize the role of social work in the medical unit, mobilize all resources to bring maximum satisfaction to patients; contribute to the implementation of the hospital's common goals, in the coming time, the hospital will continue to deploy a number of new areas of social work. Strongly communicate about implementing home health examination services, online appointment booking, customer care in the inpatient treatment area and the on-demand examination department; organize many major events for the hospital such as "Singing for the sick" and major charity programs...

BSCKII Pham Van Son - Deputy Director of Vinh General Hospital